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Official  Literature 

Introduction     to    Technocracy,    by    Howard 
Scott  and  Others.    Single  copies  25c. 

Science  vs.   Chaos,  by  Howard  Scott.    10c. 

Technology   Smashes  the  Price  System.    10c. 

Technocracy,      Some     Questions     Answered. 
15c. 

America   Prepares  for  a  Turn   in  the  Road. 
5c. 

Technocracy  in  Plain   Terms.    5c. 

The   Parade  Is   On,  by  Howard  Scott.    5c. 

Technology    and    Labor,    by    Hdward    Scott. 
Gratis. 

Keeping  Politicians  and  Poverty.     Gratis. 


Periodicals 


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NOTE:     All  of  the  items  listed   may   be  ob- 
tained in  bundles  at  special  rates. 


An  Official  Publication  of  R.D.  12349 


Mareh-^38 


Vancouver,  B.  C. 


-No.  42. 


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<KU(    \°[i 


STAFF 


M>  7*3 


C.  Saunders,  Editor 
J.  0.  Hirst,  Assoc.  Ed. 


S.  Bi.'ski,  Circulation 

A.  R.  Deaves,  Proofreader 


CONTENTS 

All-American    Canal         ....  Front  Cover 

The  Social  Mechanism 3 

Editorial 

Farad  Activities 3 

By  C.  J.  Large 

Little  Ranches  and  The  Price  System     .       .         4 

By  F.  D.  Linkletter 

The  Wise  Men  of  the  West 5 

By  Charles  Lee 

Pump  Priming 6 

By  Eldon  Brackett 
Is  Price  System  Control  Headed  for  Crash  ?         8 

By  A.  R.  Deaves 
U.B.C.  Technocrat  Group  Launched  ...         8 

Beach  City  Project .         9 

A  Picture 

Hydraulic  Dredge  "Calumet"      ....       10 

A  Picture 

Pictures 11 

Excavating 12 

Pictures 
Section  Reporter       .       .       .       .13, 14,  15  and  16 
Director-in-Chief  Tours  Again    ....       16 

W.  E.  Walter  Tour 17 

By  J.  O.  Hirst 

Technocracy  Marches  On! 18 

A  picture  of  New  Headquarters  of  R.D.  12349-1 

Recession 19 

By  C.  Saunders 

Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1.  R.D. 
12349,  Technocracy  Inc.,  at  319  West  Pender  St.,  Vancouver, 
B.  C.  Single  copies  are  10c.  and  yearly  subscriptions  $1.00  ; 
bundles  of  ten  or  more  copies  are  at  7c.  per  copy.  Please  send 
Money  Orders  in  remitting  for  literature.  Technocracy  Digest 
is  entered  at  the  Post  Office  Department  at  Ottawa,  as  second 
class  matter.     Lithographed    in    Canada. 


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TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 


ing  and  cooperation.  We  shall  probably  play 
much  as  we  like,  but  when  it  comes  to  the 
highly  technical  processes  of  modern  industry, 
only  the  functionally  trained  people- — those 
who  know  how — can  direct.  It  will  not  do  even 
to  choose  them  democratically,  for  we  of  the 
rank  and  file  are  competent  to  choose  or  direct 
only  as  outstanding  performers  in  the  field  of 
our  own  specialty. 

What  Industry  Must  Do.  Fed  by  abundant 
resources  and  driven  on  by  the  keen  inventive 
genius  of  our  race  and  time,  Industry  must 
presently  assume  its  one  proper  function — that 
of  producing  for  all  the  people  the  many  serv- 
ices and  things  they  want.  Do  not  fear  for 
your  egg-producing  industry,  Brother;  only 
mechanize,  watch  and  be  ready  for  the  change. 
As  a  money-making  institution,  it  must  and 
will  go  down,  as  others  are  going.  But  remem- 
ber it  is  only  the  financial  end  of  industry  that 
is  unable  to  function,  as  this  age  of  abundance 
draws  on.    Appetites  are  still  keen.    Eggs  are 


as  serviceable  as  ever  they  were.  You  still  may 
serve  and  grow  wealthy,  if  you  wish,  as  a 
master  producer  of  eggs,  in  that  near  to- 
morrow that  is  coming.  You  won't  own  much 
personally,  but  the  many  things  you  want  will 
simply  be  made  abundantly  available — the 
same  as  eggs — but  all  of  them  unpriced. 

When,  as  citizens  of  this  highly  favored  con- 
tinent, we  definitely  choose  this  planned  econ- 
omy of  the  New  America,  there  will  be  no  need 
for  you  to  worry  any  more  about  the  feed  bills, 
the  taxes,  or  the  price  of  eggs.  These  items  of 
price  system  affairs  will  pass,  along  with  the 
prices  of  all  other  services  and  things,  never 
to  trouble  us  again.  The  abundant  life  on  this 
continent  is  all  at  our  fingertips.  It  awaits 
only  the  belated  consent  of  intelligent  people. 
The  plans  are  ready;  we  could  begin  tomorrow; 
if  just  a  few  more  of  you  functionally  signifi- 
cant people  would  abandon  your  all  but  fruit- 
less dollar  chasing  and  Boost.    Shall  We  Go? 


THE  WISE  MEN  OF  THE  WEST 


By  CHARLES   LEE,   R.D.   10852-1 


Once  upon  a  time — though  not  exactly  in 
the  dim  past — in  a  great  nation  sorely  afflicted 
with  numerous  economic  ills,  a  mighty  politi- 
cal doctor  arose  and  was  elected  to  diagnose 
the  cause  and  find  a  cure. 

After  having  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
the  backbone  (agriculture)  was  sadly  out  of 
alignment  through  too  strenuous  use,  result- 
ing in  overproduction  and  realizing  the  grav- 
ity of  the  situation,  he  sought  the  aid  of  what 
in  ancient  times  were  called  wise  men — in  mod- 
ern times  a  brain  trust — and  put  the  problem 
squarely  up  to  them  thus: — 

"Gentlemen,  there  is  so  much  cotton,  wheat, 
cattle  and  hogs,  that  the  farmers  are  not  get- 
ting enough  for  their  produce.  Possibly  it  has 
already  dawned  upon  you  that  such  a  condition 
cannot  be  permitted  to  continue.  In  any  event, 
you  are  requested  to  pool  your  mental  puddles, 
and  find  a  solution  and  having  done  so,  report 
back  pronto,  which  means  somewhat  quickly." 

The  wise  men  bowed  themselves  out  and  at 
once  went  into  a  huddle,  and  after  a  prodigious 
agitation  of  their  cerebral  cortex,  produced  a 
mental  abortion  which  had  every  appearance 
of  being  sired  and  dammed  in  a  lunatic  asylum. 
However,  unabashed  and  probably  proud  of  the 
child,  they  at  once  sought  audience  with  the 
big  chief  to  present  it  for  adoption.  Well, 
gentlemen,  have  you  found  the  solution?   We 


have,  your  honor.  Then  spill  it.  The  solution 
is  this.  If  cotton,  wheat,  cattle  and  hogs  are 
made  scarce  enough,  prices  will  go  up  and  pros- 
perity will  return  to  the  farmers. 

The  big  chief  seemed  greatly  impressed  and 
possibly  regretted  that  the  laws  of  the  nation 
did  not  permit  the  conferring  of  titles  for  such 
an  outstanding  example  of  merit,  but  no  doubt 
assured  them  that  the  gratitude  of  the  nation 
was  theirs. 

At  this  moment,  it  is  assured,  one  of  the  side- 
kicks of  the  big  chief — having  travelled  a  little 
farther  than  the  majority  along  the  road  of 
human  evolution — timidly  asked  if  he  might 
be  permitted  to  ask  the  wise  men  a  question 
before  their  child  was  finally  adopted. 

"Okay,  let  her  rip.  Did  these  wise  men 
entirely  overlook,  or  tactfully  omit,  the  fact 
that  30  millions  of  our  people  have  not  suffici- 
ent clothes  to  wear  or  food  to  eat?" 

"Ignorant  sir,  I  would  have  you  know  that 
the  problem  put  to  these  wise  men  was  not 
how  to  feed  and  clothe  the  multitude,  but  how 
to  make  our  economic  wreck  continue  to  oper- 
ate." 

"Permit  me  to  apologize,  your  honor,  for  my 
stupidity  in  thinking  the  public  welfare  was 
under  discussion." 

"That's  all  right,  old  sport,  but  don't  let  your 
mind  go  wandering  again." 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C.,  April,  1938 

PUMP  PRIMING 


By  ELDON  BRACKETT,  R.D.   12247-5 


Recently  an  article  appeared  in  the  press 
stating  that  the  President  is  going  to  clamp 
the  brake  on  Government  spending  and  at  the 
same  time  revive  business.  Even  to  the  man- 
on-the-street  this  statement  will  appear  ridi- 
culous, but  to  a  Technocrat  it  is  the  height  of 
imbecility.  Pumping  billions  of  dollars  into 
the  Heavy  Goods  industries  will  not  help  mat- 
ters in  the  least.  The  only  reason  that  pro- 
duction has  been  raised  to  its  present  level 
from  the  1932  low  is  that  the  Roosevelt  Admin- 
istration has  pumped  enough  purchasing  power 
into  the  small-income  public  to  boost  consump- 
tion.   Production  of  course  followed. 

In  his  article  "Man-hours  a  Declining  Quan- 
tity" King  Hubbert  pointed  out  that  since  noth- 
ing has  been  done  by  private  industry  to  pro- 
vide for  the  deficit  in  small  incomes  during  the 
past  6  years  it  follows  that,  should  the  Fed- 
eral Government  discontinue  its  relief  and 
emergency  expenditures  whereby  purchasing 
power  is  given  to  individuals,  industrial  pro- 
duction will  again  shut  down,  but  faster  and 
tighter  than  it  has  ever  shut  down  before.  We 
are  witnessing  that  process  today.  Although 
the  Government  has  not  completely  discon- 
tinued its  pump-priming,  it  has  shut  off  enough 
money  from  W.P.A.,  P.W.A.  and  other  relief 
projects  to  cause  a  decline  in  consumption  and 


consequently  production.  Instead  of  curtailing 
its  emergency  expenditures  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment will  have  to  pump  faster  than  ever 
is  it  wishes  to  maintain  production  at  the  pres- 
ent level  or  higher. 

WE 

The  equation  C  =  Q  = will  illustrate  the 

P 
reason  for  this.  If  we  let  c  equal  consumption, 
q  equal  production,  w  the  average  hourly  wage 
rate,  e  total  man-hours  and  p  the  price  level, 
we  see  that  consumption  and  production  are 
directly  proportional  to  the  average  hourly 
wage-rate  and  to  the  total  number  of  man- 
hours,  and  inversely  proportional  to  the  price 
level.  Assuming  p  the  price  level  remains  con- 
stant, then  consumption  and  production  can 
only  be  maintained  provided  the  average  hour- 
ly wage  rate  w  is  raised  in  inverse  proportion 
to  the  decline  of  total  man-hours  e.  From  the 
depression  low  in  1932  there  was  a  temporary 
rise  in  total  man-hours  in  the  manufacturing 
industries  which  lasted  through  1935.  There 
was  also  a  slight  rise  in  the  wage  rate  but  the 
rise  in  the  price  level  p  wiped  out  this  gain. 
Consequently  when  tdtal  man-hours  began  to 
fall  again  in  the  early  part  of  1937,  c  and  q, 
as  can  readily  be  seen  from  the  above  equation 
were  forced  to  follow  suit.   Therefore,  the  pre- 


U.S.     STEEL        INGOT        PRODUCTION  -  BY  MONTHS 


a. 
o 
u. 

3<0 

z 

0 

2  J 
«:    2 

.... 

REF.    S 

.of  C.B. 

""^                    4 

Jem. 

1937 


Feb.     Mot.      April       May      June      July        Aug.      Sept.     Oct.      Nov. 
P£AK-9O%0F  CAPACITY  —   LOW- 2  6% 


Dec.     Jan. 

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TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 


vious  rate  of  Government  spending  for  relief 
was  not  able  to  offset  the  decrease  in  purchas- 
ing power  brought  about  by  the  inevitable  de- 
cline in  total  man-hours.  To  add  to  this  defici- 
ency the  Government  curtailed  its  emergency 
expenditures  still  further  causing  the  present 
decline  in  production.  It  therefore  follows  that 
if  the  Government  wishes  to  bring  production 
back  to  its  former  level  it  will  have  to  resume 
its  previous  rate  of  spending  plus  enough  more 
to  offset  the  decline  of  total  man-hours  in  the 
manufacturing  industries.  This  curve  of  total 
man-hours  will  decline  indefinitely  from  now 
on  and  at  an  increasing  rate  due  to  large 
mechanization  programs  now  going  on  in  all 
branches  of  industry  and  the  huge  government 
power  projects  already  completed  or  nearing 
completion,  making  available  new  sources  of 
cheap  hydro-electric  power  most  of  which  is 
used  in  industry. 


There  are  now  indications  that  the  Federal 
Government  will  shortly  underwrite  the  ex- 
penditures of  corporate  enterprise  for  further 
huge  mechanization  programs  which  of  course 
means  even  less  man-hours  and  purchasing 
power.  These  new,  nearly  automatic  plants  of 
the  large  corporations  will  enable  them  to  cut 
their  overhead  and  sell  at  lower  prices  thus 
driving  all  the  small  business  men  who  cannot 
compete  out  of  business  and  on  to  relief.  The 
Government  will  be  forced  to  raise  larger 
sums  than  ever  in  order  to  take  care  of  those 
on  relief  and  will  raise  part  of  this  money 
from  increased  income  taxes  on  those  making 
less  than  $10,000  per  year.  The  small  pro- 
fessional man  will  therefore  find  it  nicer  and 
cheaper  to  go  out  of  business  and  on  to  relief. 
Bigger  power  projects  will  be  built  in  order  to 
give  work  to  the  unemployed  and  the  result 
will  be  more  extraneous  energy  and  less  human 


STEEL    PRODUCTION     U.S.A. 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 

IS  PRICE  SYSTEM  CONTROL  HEADED  FOR  CRASH? 

By  A.  R.  DEAVES,  R.D.  12349-1 


Figuring  1926  as  100,  industrial  production 
in  U.  S.  A.  reached  its  peak  of  129  in  1929,  took 
a  tailspin  to  below  60  in  1932,  flattened  out 
until  1933,  zoomed  to  over  120  in  1936,  flat- 
tened out  again  until  the  summer  of  1937  and 
then  nose  dived  to  85  in  December  of  the  same 
year,  January  and  February  of  this  year  mak- 
ing it  appear  like  a  crack-up.    But! 

In  order  to  create  a  calamity  to  capitalize, 
the  Politician-in-Chief  makes  the  statement 
that  "America  must  have  the  same  protection 
on  the  Atlantic  as  on  the  Pacific."  So  it  is  evi- 
dent that  if  the  Price  System  doesn't  get  us 
soon  the  Eskimos  will. 

Here  are  some  more  implications  for  you  to 
figure  out:— Of  1929's  total  sales  30  7  were 
on  credit  or  time  payment.  Of  1937's  totals 
727   were  credit. 

On  February  25th,  1938,  General  Motors  cut 
the  salaries  of  40,000  employees  107,    to  307. 

In  Canada  in  February  a  drop  of  29,000  in 
employment    occurred. 

Consider  a  few  basic  materials  in  the  field 
of  industry.  While  doing  so  remember  that  937 
of  our  physical  production  is  for  other  than 
sustenance;  937  of  all  metal  used  in  iron  and 


steel  and  987  of  all  work  done  is  by  means 
of  extraneous  or  machine  energy. 

Steel  then  is  our  basic  metal.  In  1913  the 
average  monthly  U.  S.  production  was  two  and 
a  half  million  long  tons.  In  1916  it  was  three 
and  a  half  million;  four  and  two-thirds  in  1929; 
four  and  two-thirds  in  January,  1937;  one  and 
two-thirds  in  January,  1938.  The  accompany- 
ing chart  illustrates  steel  production  for  the 
foregoing  period. 

54  7  of  all  energy  used  in  production  is  de- 
rived from  coal.  Coal  production  in  the  U.  S. 
averaged  monthly,  forty  nine  and  a  half  mil- 
lion short  tons  in  1913;  fifty  one  in  1916;  fifty 
and  two-thirds  in  1929;  forty-five  and  one-fifth 
in  January  1937,  and  thirty-five  in  January 
1938. 

To  bring  industrial  production  back  to  the 
levels  of  1929  or  1937  would  entail  uncontrolled 
inflation  which  means  uncontrolled  mass  emo- 
tion.   Then  what? 

Then  will  be  required  an  organization  com- 
petent to  co-ordinate  the  physical  operations 
of  this  continent,  without  money  and  without 
price.  Technocracy  Inc.  is  the  only  organiza- 
tion that  is  preparing  itself  for  that  job. 


U.  B.  C.  TECHNOCRAT   GROUP  LAUNCHED 


The  Students'  Council  of  the  Alma  Mater 
Society  of  the  University  of  British  Columbia 
has  given  full  permission  to  the  Technocrat 
Group  for  the  use  of  a  room  during  the  noon 
period  of  an  hour  and  a  half.  Although  they 
placed  a  ban  on  meetings  of  individual  political 
organizations  on  the  campus,  The  Students' 
Council  members  realized  that  Technocracy  is 
not  of  such  a  nature  and  allowed  open  meet- 
ings to  be  held  in  connection  with  the  series  of 
weekly  lectures  on  Technocracy  which  are 
being  given  by  Mr.  Paul  J.  Sykes. 


energy.  The  ironic  endless  circle  shown  on 
page  22  of  "TECHNOCRACY  A-9"  illustrates 
this  process  very  clearly. 

In  "TECHNOCRACY  A-10"  Howard  Scott 
says,  "The  government  of  the  United  States, 
the  banks,  the  insurance  companies,  corporate 
enterprise,  have  available,  it  is  conservatively 
estimated,  a  total  credit  of  over  two  hundred 
billions  of  dollars.  When  the  governments  of 
the  United  States  and  Canada  are  compelled 
by  the  exigencies  of  the  technological  advance 


To  date  two  lectures  have  been  given,  with 
the  purpose  of  acquainting  some  of  the  more 
intelligent  students  with  the  physical  facts  un- 
covered by  Technocracy.  This  "course"  in 
Technocracy  is  being  well-supported  and 
attendance  will  undoubtedly  increase  from  its 
present  twenty,  considerably  during  the  next 
six  meetings. 

The  Technocrats  are  not  connected  with  the 
U.  B.  C.  Political  Discussion  Club  and  waste 
no  time  in  useless  debate. 


to  use  this  huge  credit  as  a  last  attempt  at 
salvation  our  national  economies  will  have  shot 
their  last  calamity." 

We  are  now  about  to  witness  this  last 
attempt  at  the  salvation  of  the  Price  System. 

When  it  is  over  Technocracy  will  have  to  in- 
stall its  blue-printed  design  of  a  balanced  load 
control  under  which,  for  the  first  time  in  his- 
tory, complete  security  at  a  high  standard  of 
living  will  be  guaranteed  to  all  from  birth  to 
death. 


■  I 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 

BEACH  CITY  PROJECT 

20  Miles  Due  South  of  Akron,  Ohio 

Courtesy,  Excavating  Engineer. 


• 


The  above  picture  gives  a  general  view  of 
the  Beach  City  dam  site  in  the  Muskingum 
Valley.  This  valley  is  the  bed  of  the  great  Ohio 
floods  and  the  work  is  part  of  the  T.V.A.  pro- 
gram. Permanent  lakes  ranging  in  size  from 
three  hundred  and  fifty  acres  to  three  thousand 
five  hundred  and  fifty  acres  will  be  created  by 
eleven  of  the  fourteen  reservoirs.  As  well  as 
the  construction  of  dams  the  project  involves 
the  building  of  eleven  levees,  the  re-location  of 


one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  highways,  sixty- 
five  miles  of  railroad,  two  hundred  and  seven 
miles  of  telephone  and  telegraph  line,  sixty-five 
miles  of  gas  line,  sixty-five  miles  of  power  line 
and  thirteen  miles  of  oil  pipe-line.  Three  entire 
villages  and  parts  of  eleven  others  must  be  re- 
located. The  total  amount  of  earth  to  be  moved 
on  this  job  will  amount  to  approximately 
1,724,200  cub.yds. 


Courtesv,  Earth  Mover. 


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.-.*. 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 


11 


An  inland  waterway  connecting  the  Great 
Lakes  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  is  now  under  con- 
struction. When  completed  Lake  Calumet,  in 
South  Chicago,  will  be  handling  large  lake 
freighters.  The  channel  between  the  lakes  is 
being  widened  and  deepened  by  what  is  prob- 
ably the  largest  hydraulic  dredge  on  this  con- 
tinent. Work  on  the  project  began  in 
the  Spring  of  1936  and  by  March  1937 
over     3,000,000     cubic     yards     of     clay     had 


WEAR  A  MONAD 
BUTTON 


Man,  through  his  forward  march  in  the  field 
of  technology,  is  able  to  achieve  increasingly 
greater  results. — An  accompanying  shot  shows 
a  recently  developed  mechanism  for  the  control 
of  power  shovels.  It  completely  eliminates  the 
previously  used  cumbersome  lever  motion  con- 
trol. 


been  moved.  The  specifications  call  for  the 
moving  of  a  total  of  5,000,000  cub.  yds.  A  full 
page  view  of  the  hydraulic  dredge  "Calumet" 
is  shown  on  the  left.  The  cut  on  this  page 
shows  the  discharge  end  of  the  Calumet's  al- 
ternate section.  This  discharge  end  is  capable 
of  passing  out  12,000  cub.  yds.  of  clay  every 
twenty-four  hours.  You  will  note  the  difference 
in  the  project  on  the  previous  page,  where  ma- 
terials in   a  dry   state  are   moved  by  dragline 


Courtesy.  Hxcavating  Engineer. 
i  The  2-yard  bucket  hits  the  water  .  .  .  comes  up  with  a  load 
of  clay   .    .    .   swings   and   dumps   on   the   growing   dyke. 


■ 


■  ■ 


H 


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■ 


Cf  $,*■••         ^H        *v-< 
■    ■ 


ns 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 

THE  SECTION  REPORTER 


13 


The   announcement  below   speaks  for  itself. 

WINNIPEG. — T  echnocracy  Incorporated 
will  soon  publish  its  12th  publication  and  the 
Section  responsible  for  that  accomplishment 
will  be  R.D.  9749,  317  Portage  Avenue,  Winni- 
peg. Preparations  are  proceeding,  manuscripts 
are  being  prepared,  costs  are  being  closely 
checked,  designs  for  the  cover  are  being  sub- 
mitted. The  end  of  February  should  see  the 
completion  of  No.  1  magazine.  But  woe  and 
betide,  through  the  hurry  and  the  rush,  the 
publications  division  are  still  at  their  wits  end 
in  an  attempt  to  find  a  name  for  Winnipeg's 
publication.  Your  suggestions  are  therefore 
solicited.  Hand  them  in  to  Bob  Longstaffe  and 
our  Division  will  most  heartily  congratulate 
the  person  submitting  a  suitable  title. 

The  price,  tentatively,  to  all,  is  five  cents 
a  copy.  This  will  not  greatly  deplete  the  slender 
resources  of  most  members  and  we  trust  will 
enhance  the  sales.  This  is  your  magazine.  On 
your  shoulders  depends,  to  a  certain  extent,  its 
accelerating  growth  or  final  extinction.  Make 
it  grow  to  the  stage  where  a  printed  finish 
will  announce  its  successful  reception.  The 
Publication  Division  will  devote  its  talents  to 
producing  worthwhile  material.  Take  as  many 
copies  as  possible  and  distribute  them  to  con- 
tacts. 

All  contributions  by  way  of  articles,  clipp- 
ings and  suggestions  will  be  received  with  open 
arms. 

Section  1,  R.D.  9749 DO  YOUR  STUFF. 

SASKATOON.— The  Division  of  Publica- 
tions, 1  Grainger  Building,  Saskatoon,  Sask. 
has  a  limited  number  of  copies  of  Lessons  6/10, 
11/15,  16/19,  20,  and  21/22  in  stock.  Members 
wishing  to  complete  their  sets  should  order 
promptly   through   their    Sections. 

Thanks! 

AKRON.— When  Section  Three  of  R.D.  8141 
received  its  charter  in  April  1937,  its  home 
City,  Akron,  (rubber  capital  of  the  world)  was 
concerned  with  labor   disputes. 

The  Section,  four  months  previous,  had  with 
considerable  difficulty  mustered  a  corporal's 
guard  to  begin  work  on  the  Study  Course  under 
the  leadership  of    Organizer    Claude   La   Due. 

Today  the  organization  has  achieved  a  mem- 
bership growth  of  1300  per  cent  and  its  activi- 
ties co-ordinated  with  Section  2  of  8141,  have 


extended  into  the  neighboring  cities  of  Cuya- 
hoga Falls  and  Barberton. 

Education  was  made  the  backbone  of  the 
organization.  After  months  of  experimenta- 
tion, a  plan  of  educating  its  members  was 
evolved  which  appeared  to  produce  the  maxi- 
mum of  results.  If  you  could  get  a  member 
to  read  the  lesson  in  class  you  were  at  least 
certain  he  had  read  it.  Tied  with  this,  a  teach- 
er's Study  Group  was  organized  to  standard- 
ize data,  assignments  and  lesson  reviews. 

Study  Course  groups  meet  three  nights 
every  week  under  the  guidance  of  instructors 
from  the  Teachers  Class.  The  majority  of  the 
instructors  have  had  previous  experience  in 
educational  methods. 

In  this  manner  the  tendency  of  members  to 
read  into  Technocracy,  their  own  ideas,  has 
been  held  to  a  minimum.  To  supplement  the 
study  course,  lectures  on  related  subjects  have 
been  delivered  by  non-members  interspersed 
with  frequent  motion  pictures. 

The  background  of  Section  Three  is  import- 
ant. Its  membership  is  drawn  from  an  indus- 
trial center  of  approximately  260,000  people, 
most  of  whom  are  dependent  upon  the  rubber 
industry. 

The  relief  load  is  rapidly  approaching  the 
1932-33  peak.  Today  11,414  persons  are  either 
receiving  direct  relief  or  are  working  on  Gov- 
ernment Work  projects.  Officials  estimate  that 
at  least  5,000  more  should  receive  aid.  Employ- 
ees engaged  in  production  in  the  four  major 
rubber  plants  as  of  January  10,  totaled  25,000, 
a  drop  of  13,000  from  38,000  in  the  same  period 
of  1937.  Current  layoff  in  these  industries 
amounts  to  9,500  employees,  with  new  cuts 
and  office  staff  layoffs  ahead. 

Man  hours  have  been  cut  until  the  weekly 
income  of  the  average  worker  is  equivalent  to 
that  of  the  Relief  Worker. 

Based  on  relief  load  figures,  a  conservative 
estimate  of  unemployment  shows  at  least  one 
wage  earner  in  four,  unemployed.  No  allow- 
ance is  made  for  those  who  have  just  reached 
working  age,  or  for  those  unemployed  but  un- 
registered. 

L.    S.    OSWALD 

R.D.  8141-3 


14 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 


LOS  ANGELES.— Section  14  R.D.  11834  re- 
ports that  the  circulation  of  "The  Technocrat" 
has  increased  five  hundred  copies  this  month 
over  last. 

SAN  FRANCISCO — The  return  of  the  Wal- 
ter's tour  to  San  Francisco  found  this  section 
in  new  Headquarters.  Inadequate  to  handle 
the  ever  growing  interest  manifested  in  this 
seemingly  invulnerable  stronghold  of  complac- 
ency, we  have  been  forced  to  move  to  larger 
quarters.  Our  new  location  will  give  us  an 
office,  to  be  open  daily;  accessible  to  members 
and  to  the  public.  Also  the  use  of  a  commodious 
assembly  hall  for  our  weekly  study  classes  and 
monthly   forums. 

The  attendance  at  Mr.  Walter's  talk  here 
January  25th  was  highly  satisfactory  to  mem- 
bers of  this  section,  an  increase  of  95%  in 
attendance  of  non-members,  over  his  recent 
visit  here  in  December.  Both  meetings  received 
the  same  amount  of  publicity. 

Activity  has  increased  tremendously  since 
the  Chief's  stay  in  San  Francisco,  and  member- 
ship has  increased  proportionately,  adding 
some  valuable  new  members  to  the  section.  It 
can  now  modestly  boast  of  the  most  interest- 
ing procedure  in  its  course  of  study,  due  to  the 
acquisition  of  a  new  member,  Grace  Leonard, 
who  heads  our  educational  function.  Other 
acquisitions  include  two  radio  engineers,  who 
are  operators  in  communication  systems,  and 
last  but  not  least,  a  high  school  student,  there- 
by putting  to  rout  the  misconception  that  all 
high  school  students  of  San  Francisco  sit  on 
their  brains. 

Visitors  from  other  sections  to  San  Fran- 
cisco will  be  able  to  locate  our  section  head- 
quarters at  83  McAllister  Street,  Room  204, 
Book  Concern  Building — one  block  off  Market 

Street. 

J.   PACKARD 

Section     Reporter, 
R.D.   12237-1 

SALMON  ARM_The  members  of  R.D. 
11950-1.,  Salmon  Arm,  B.  C,  together  with  a 
number  of  friends,  enjoyed  a  "Social  Evening" 
in  the  Institute  Hall,  January  26.  Court  Whist, 
followed  by  a  short  program,  a  part  of  which 
consisted  of  interesting  questions  asked  and 
answered  by  the  members  themselves,  took  up 
the  greater  part  of  the  evening.  Then  follow- 
ing the  refreshments  a  short  informal  chat 
with  a  few  young  friends  resulted  in  the  for- 
mation of  an  embryo  Farad  group. 


As  this  date  marked  the  second  anniversary 
of  the  receipt  of  the  charter,  Mr.  Page,  director 
gave  a  brief  resume  of  the  activities  of  R.D. 
11950-1,  the  pioneer  section  of  the  interior.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  during  its  brief  life- 
time the  Salmon  Arm  section  has  been  res- 
ponsible for  the  organization  of  various  groups 
throughout  the  Okanagan  Valley  and  some 
adjoining  districts. 

It  has  been  decided  that  entertainments  such 
as  this  will  be  regular  monthly  features,  not 
only  for  social  contacts,  but  to  provide  an 
opportunity  for  amateur  speakers  to  "try  their 
wings." 

R.  J.   SPENCER 

Section  Reporter 
R.D.  11950-1 


BELLINGHAM Bellingham     is     definitely 

advancing,  which  is  really  remarkable  for  this 
hide-bound  little  community.  It  is  reeking 
with  ancient  preconceptions,  which  are  wor- 
shipped with  all  the  fervor  of  a  heathen  for  a 
fetish.  Occasionally  an  individual  jumps  from 
the  old  rut,  either  with  the  assistance  of  Tech- 
nocracy, or  perhaps  at  last  in  disgust-  at  the 
exhibitions  of  nonsense  and  futility  which  are 
so  plentiful  in  this  neck  of  the  woods. 

There  is  one  thing  about  Technocracy  that 
is  not  like  opportunity.  Opportunity,  so  they 
say,  knocks  but  once;  Technocracy  hammers 
away  incessantly,  maybe  a  feeble  rap  at  first 
but  louder  and  stronger  each  successive  year. 
Like  the  marvellous  advances  of  modern 
science  which  it  represents,  it  has  the  founda- 
tion to  stand  on  from  which  it  cannot  be- 
thrown. 

Bellingham  has,  at  present,  three  grey  auto- 
mobiles, complete  with  Monads;  more  in  the 
offing.  They  do  real  work  in  the  field  and  will 
do  more  when  the  public  in  general  comes  to 
a  realization  that  the  work  is  purely  voluntary 
and  absolutely  without  personal  reward.  It 
manifests  our  sincerity  and  stability  of  pur- 
pose. 

Technocracy  conducts  an  informal  study 
class  every  Tuesday  evening  at  8  o'clock,  room 
28  Clover  Building,  Bellingham,  Washington. 
Bring   your  friends  and   ask   questions. 

C.  CONNOR 

Section  Reporter, 
R.D.  12248-1 


^■^ 


^■H 


■ 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 


15 


Radio  broadcasts  are  planned  for  each  city 
and  extensive  publicity  work  will  be  under- 
taken. Technocracy  in  this  area  will  be  ex- 
tended considerably  and  to  whatever  extent 
possible  the  resources  of  the  entire  organiza- 
tion will  be  thrown  behind  the  work. 

Mr.  C.  J.  Large,  section  organizer  of  R.  D. 
12349-1,  is  again  away  on  a  short  speaking 
tour,  this  time  on  Farad  business.  To  date  he 
reports  successful  meetings  at  Seattle,  Puyal- 
lup  and  Everett,  where  people  were  turned 
away. 


VICTORIA Section  1  of  R.D.  12348,  Vic- 
toria, B.C.,  holds  Study  Class  meetings  on  Mon- 
day and  Tuesday  evenings  at  222  Pemberton 
Bldg.,  at  8  p.m.,  and  round  table  discussions 
every  Thursday  evening,  which  are  proving  a 
great  success,  announcements  of  these  meet- 
ings appearing  in  the  Press  each  week. 

We  are  now  listed  in  the  telephone  direc- 
tory, adding  to  the  convenience  of  out-of-town 
visitors  in  locating  the  home  of  12348-1. 

This  section's  mimeograph  machine  is  now 
running  smoothly  and  the  members  are  work- 
ing it  overtime   printing  free   literature. 

Our  library  is  under  way  and  our  biblio- 
graphy amounts  to  about  fifteen  books. 

This  section  is  hoping  to  develop  speakers 
shortly  as  they  are  badly  needed  on  Vancouver 
Island.  • 

Section    Reporter 
R.D.  12348-1 


SEATTLE — Our   regular   study  classes  are 
held  every  Monday  and  Friday  evening  at  5012 
University  Way,  Seattle,  Washington. 
M.  FORCIER, 

Section    Reporter, 
R.D.  12247-4 


RABBIT  LAKE J.  R.  MacLeod,  F.O.,  Rab- 
bit Lake,  Saskatchewan,  has  procured  a  quant- 
ity of  hydroponic  chemicals  of  proven  San 
Diego  formula.  A  limited  quantity  is  available 
to  technocrats  and  others  who  wish  to  conduct 
an  experiment. 

J.  R.   MacLEOD, 
Field  Organizer,  R.D.   10852. 


PORT  ALBERNI — A  study  group  has  been 
meeting  in  the  Legion  Hall  every  Friday  from 
8  p.m.  to  10  p.m.  during  the  past  few  months, 
December  24th  and  31st  excepted. 

This  group  has  now  finished  lesson  No.  10. 
The  accuracy  of  two  statements  in  lessons  No. 
1  and  No.  5  respectively  were  challenged  by 
the  students  and  upon  being  checked  by  the 
Governor  of  Research  were  found  to  be  correct. 
Courtenay  expects  to  start  a  study  group  in 
the  near  future. 

The  application  of  R.D.  12449-1  for  its  char- 
ter goes  forward  on  January  1st. 
E  BOHLE, 

Section  Reporter, 
R.D.  12449-1 
Box  363 
Port  Alberni,  B.  C. 


PUYALLUP — Section  No.  6,  R.D.  12247, 
Puyallup,  Washington,  has  study  classes  meet- 
ing each  Monday  evening  at  8:00  p.m.  in  the 
Library  Auditorium.  Robert  O.  Logan,  Direc- 
tor, with  lectures  under  the  leadership  of  Percy 
Harader,  Governor  of  Education.  Visitors  wel- 
come. 

GERTRUDE  JULIEN, 
Governor  of 
Publications, 
R.D.  12247-6 


VANCOUVER — A.  R.  Deaves,  R.D.  12349-1, 
has  received  his  speaker's  authorization  from 
C.  H.  Q.  Mr.  Deaves  has  been  Governor  of 
Public  Speaking  ever  since  the  section  was 
formed.  This  section  now  has  three  authorized 
speakers  and  is  still  short  handed. 

Evidence  of  increasing  momentum  around 
12349-1,  has  brought  home  a  realization  that 
the  psychological  capacity  of  our  present  head- 
quarters has  been  reached  and  steps  are  now 
under  way  to  securing  larger  premises. 

On  Feb.  18,  an  impressive  address  on  "Cur- 
rent Trends  and  Deciding  Factors"  was  given 
by  Director  W.  E<  Walter,  who  explained  that 
"The  sequence  of  events  is  compelling  a  social 
change  and  none  of  the  rules  of  scarcity  are 
applicable  in  an  economy  of  abundance." 

On  Feb.  20th,  under  management  of  the 
Farads,    a    double    feature    program    was    pre- 


1G 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 


sented  by  C.  Large  and  Ramona  Coulson  on  the 
subjects  "Price  System  Collapse"  and  "Wo- 
man's independence  of  Man  in  a  Technate,"  re- 
spectively. Mr.  Large  illustrated  that  the  status 
of  a  large  area  depends  on  available  mineral 
resources  and  rate  of  energy  conversion,  by 
stating  that  mining  operations  were  taking 
place  in  Europe,  at  a  depth  of  35,000  ft.  and 
at  a  distance  of  two  miles  out  at  sea. 

An  interesting  feature  will  take  place  on 
March  24th  in  the  form  of  an  address  on  "Hy- 
ponics"  to  be  given  by  Dr.  G.  H.  Harris  of  the 
University  of  British  Columbia  at  the  Medical 
Dental  Building  at  8  p.m. 

An  increase  of  from  5%  to  27%  in  commer- 
cial publications  response  has  been  witnessed 
by  the  Research  Division,  while  blue-printing 
equipment  is  almost  ready  for  action. 

Another    social    event    will    take    place    on 
March   12th  at  the  "Green  Apple  Pie"  which 
promises   to   be   bigger  and  better  than   ever. 
Twenty  ladies  met  at  their  first  periodical  com- 
mittee meeting  of  the  last  Thursday  of  Febru- 
ary when  a  list  of  questions  on  "A  ladies  status 
under    a    Technate"    were    submitted    to    and 
answered  commendably  by  Mr.  Walter. 
EDITH  MUIR, 
Section  Reporter, 
R.D.  12349-1 

(Cont'd  from   page  3.) 

into  a  board.  When  the  screen  was  removed, 
he  was  still  tied  by  the  same  knots.  We  are 
still  guessing. 

The  junior  Technocrats  have  proven  very  effi- 
cient in  the  distribution  of  notices  for  senior 
meetings.  This  week  they  are  covering  an 
area  of  11  by  21  blocks,  and  placing  a  notice 
in  each  of  the  approximate  4,000  homes. 

In  the  field  we  have  Miss  Audrey  Wood, 
Dir.  FARADS  10652-1;  Grainger  Bldg.,  Saska- 
toon, Sask,  who  is  capably  building  up  a  strong 
youth  section.  They  have  enjoyed  several  wein- 
er  roasts,  a  skating  party  and  house  socials, 
besides  attending  study  classes.  This  group 
is  fortunate  in  having  an  amateur  photog- 
rapher, Jack  McGrath,  as  a  member.  '"Come 
on  Jack,  let's  have  a  picture  of  the  bunch." 

10852-1  North  Battleford,  Sask.  has  prob- 
ably already  had  their  first  FARAD  meeting, 
under  the  guiding  hand  of  Miss  Hazel  Turner, 
1071  Arthur  St.  "We  are  waiting  to  hear  from 
you,  Hazel." 

In  Meadow  Lake,  Sask.  we  have  a  FARAD 
enthusiast  in  Mr.  C.  V.  Carl,  who  plans  to 
organize  a  junior  class  for  the  boys  and  girls 
who  are  20  years  or  under. 


12149-1,  R.R.  No.  1,  Chilliwack,  B.  C.  Here 
we  find  a  young  chap,  W.  V.  Gillespie,  15  years 
old,  wearing  the  Technocracy  emblem  around 
town,  carrying  an  identification  membership 
card  on  his  hip  and  credited  with  his  1938 
FARAD  dues  paid  in  full.  If  Chilliwack  has 
any  more  live-wires,  Bill  is  going  to  find  them. 

Los  Angeles,  Calif.,  has  some  FARADS  who 
are  showing  the  rest  of  us  what  can  be  done. 
Miss  Glendora  Glendon  is  the  Director  and  the 
"Digest"  would  appreciate  a  special  article 
from  you.    "How  about  it  Glendora?" 


Section  Reporters  please  note:  This  mag- 
azine goes  to  press  approximately  )0  days 
before  it  is  delivered  to  your  Section. 
Send  your  programs  and  reports  in  early. 

Editor. 


DIRECTOR-IN-CHIEF 
TOURS  AGAIN 

The  middle  of  April  will  see  Director-in- 
Chief  Howard  Scott  once  more  on  a  lecture  and 
organization  tour,  this  time  in  the  eastern- 
central  United  States.  Subject  to  minor  re- 
vision the  schedule  is  as  follows: 

Cleveland,  Ohio April  17,  18,  19. 

Akron,  Ohio "  20,21. 

Youngstown,  Ohio  ..  "  22. 

Canton,  Ohio "  23. 

Toledo,  Ohio "  25. 

Detroit,  Mich "  26,27,28. 

Chicago,  111 "  29,  30,  May  1. 

Milwaukee,  Wis. May      2. 

Appleton,  Wis "         3. 

Milwaukee,  Wis "         4. 

St.  Louis,  Mo "         6,7,8. 

Indianapolis,  Ind.....  "         9,  10. 

Dayton,  Ohio "  11. 

Wheeling,  W.  Va. ....  "  12. 

Pittsburgh,  Pa "  13,  14. 

In  view  of  the  downward  trend  in  all  Price 
System  activities,  Technocracy's  very  evident 
growth  at  this  time  is  particularly  significant. 
The  ground  to  be  covered  is  the  most  densely 
populated  area  of  like  size  on  this  Continent. 
It  is  the  home  of  over  forty  million  people.  No 
other  area  is  so  highly  industrialized.  Here  the 
technological  development  of  this  Continent 
reaches  its  highest  expression.  Here  the  seri- 
ousness of  the  national  situation  is  realized 
and  Technocracy  has  selected  herein  the  most 
strategic  points  to  hear  the  message  of  our 
Director-in-Chief. 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 


17 


W.  E.  WALTER  TOUR 


By  J.  O.  HIRST,  R.  D.  12349-1 


That  indefatigable  Technocrat,  W.  E.  Wal- 
ter, Director  of  R.  D.  12349-1,  is  back  from  his 
Southwestern  tour  looking  cheerfully  success- 
ful. 

With  Mrs.  Walter  at  the  wheel  and  on  occa- 
sion functioning  as  speaker,  the  party  covered 
sixty-five  hundred  miles  and  made  thirty-five 
official  stopovers.  Mr.  Walter  addressed  forty 
gatherings,  some  of  them  public,  some  for  tech- 
nocrats only,  and  his  total  audience  was  in  the 
neighborhood  of  ten  thousand  people. 

The  first  address  was  given  at  Everett  on 
December  15th  under  the  auspices  of  Section  1 
R.  D.  12247  and  was  a  membership  meeting. 
Mr.  Walter  outlined  organizational  procedure, 
emphasizing  the  importance  of  the  newly- 
formed  Area  Organization.  The  following  day 
at  Tacoma  he  addressed  a  capacity  crowd  at 
the  Lincoln  High  School  Auditorium.  His  topic 
was  "Making  Securities  Insecure." 

At  Portland  on  the  17th  a  record  crowd  more 
than  filled  the  hall.  This  section  has  recently 
moved  into  new  headquarters  and  promises  to 
expand  rapidly. 

The  next  official  stop  of  the  tour  party  was 
in  San  Francisco  on  December  21st,  where  Mr. 
Walter  spoke  before  a  capacity  audience.  San 
Francisco  is  showing  signs  of  coming  out  and 
we  expect  to  hear  great  things  of  this  section. 

A  short  run  next  day  brought  the  party  to 
San  Jose  where  a  meeting  of  the  local  group 
was  addressed.  This  group  is  rapidly  nearing 
section  requirements.  Following  this  talk  sev- 
eral days  were  spent  holidaying  in  and  around 
San  Francisco  as  guests  of  the  local  Director, 
Mr.  McCaslin. 

Fresno  was  the  next  stop  where,  under  the 
supervision  of  the  local  Director  and  member- 
ship, a  public  meeting  was  held.  The  attend- 
ance was  good  and  there  is  promise  of  steady 
growth  here. 

At  the  Emerson  High  School  in  Bakersfield 
the  following  day  Mr.  Walter  spoke  to  a  small 
group  of  interested  people.  This  meeting  was 
sponsored  by  provisional  Section  1,  R.  D.  11835. 

A  short  membership  talk  and  a  discussion  of 
the  methods  employed  in  the  conducting  of 
study  groups  both  in  Phoenix  and  Vancouver 
broke  the  routine  at  this  point.  There  was  a 
capacity  audience  and  a  study  class  was  held 
at  the  close  of  the  talk. 

The  following  day,  January  7th,  under  the 
auspices  of  Sec.  5,  R.D.  11233,  a  public  meeting 


was   held    in    the   First    Avenue   Headquarters. 
Sound  pictures  accompanied  the  lecture. 

At  Mesa,  Arizona,  the  Phoenix  group  did 
good  work  in  providing  a  meeting  at  which 
more  than  half  the  audience  stayed  for  the 
organization  period. 

San  Diego,  under  the  capable  leadership  of 
Director  Stark,  put  on  a  good  meeting,  the 
question  period  being  particularly  lively.  The 
following  evening  Mr.  Walter  delivered  an  or- 
ganization talk  to  the  members  at  Section 
Headquarters. 

Arriving  in  the  Los  Angeles  area  the  first 
meeting  was  held  at  Pasadena  in  the  Labor 
Temple.  It  was  attended  by  a  capacity  crowd 
which  showed  the  greatest  interest  in  the  lec- 
ture. 

At  Van  Nuys,  Mrs.  Walter  was  the  feature 
speaker,  giving  a  talk  at  the  Van  Nuys 
Women's  Club. 

The  third  meeting  under  the  area's  sponsor- 
ship was  held  in  Long  Beach,  where  Mr.  Wal- 
ter addressed  a  capacity  crowd,  his  subject  be- 
ing "Technocracy — The  Answer  to  the  National 
Dilemma." 

Leaving  this  territory,  much  refreshed,  the 
party  moved  up  to  Kingsbury,  Cal.,  where  Mr. 
Walter  spoke  to  a  capacity  audience  in  a  pri- 
vate home.  His  subject  was  "Organization." 
Following  this,  "Distribution  by  Energy  Certi- 
fication" was  the  subject  of  the  first  return 
engagement  in  San  Francisco.  Mr.  McCaslin, 
Director  of  this  group,  has  a  strong  section 
organized  and  they  are  making  great  headway 
when  one  considers  the  effort  required  to  open 
up  San  Francisco. 

The  return  trip  was  made  more  rapidly;  the 
next  report  coming  from  Eugene,  Oregon.  This 
is  comparatively  new  territory  and  satisfac- 
tory progress  is  being  made  by  the  group. 

Then  to  Portland,  in  the  Masonic  Temple, 
where  the  speaker  gave  a  complete  outline  of 
approaching  factors  which  will  bring  about  the 
collapse  of  the  Price  System  on  this  continent. 

At  Camas,  Washington,  on  January  31st,  our 
"touring  pioneers"  had  a  glimpse  of  a  young 
section  which  promises  great  things.  Watch 
this  section  go  places! 

Then  back  to  Seattle  under  the  auspices  of 
R.  D.  12247 — 3  and  4,  where  a  really  successful 
organization  meeting  was  held  after  the  lecture 
at  the  Swedish  Hall.  Under  the  auspices  of  the 
Seattle    sections   a   meeting   was  held   at   Ed- 


18 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 


monds,  Washington,  in  the  school  Auditorium, 
on  the  following  day,  February  4th,  where  an 
interested  group  heard  the  speaker. 

Coming  closer  to  home,  the  local  section  at 
Bellingham  provided  adequate  arrangements  to 
carry  out  a  successful  meeting  in  that  city  on 
the  night  of  February  10th. 

Arriving  in  Vancouver,  British  Columbia,  the 
following  day,  the  local  crusaders  appeared  re- 
laxed, well  pleased  with  their  holiday,  and 
feeling  that  their  efforts  were  not  in  vain. 

The  chief  importance  of  this  tour  lies  not  so 
much  in  the  not  inconsiderable  number  of  new 
members  that  are  directly  attributable  to  it 
but  in  the  clarification  of  the  views  of  the  al- 
ready   existing    membership    who    heard    Mr. 


Walter.  The  importance  of  this  clarification 
can  hardly  be  over-emphasized,  for  upon  it  de- 
pends the  smooth  progress  of  the  job  we  have 
set  ourselves.  This  job  is  the  most  colossal 
ever  undertaken  by  man.  In  fact,  were  it  not 
for  the  compulsion  of  events  there  would  be  no 
hope  of  it  being  completed,  either  in  this  gen- 
eration or  the  next.  Mr.  Walter  has  consist- 
ently and  persistently  set  up  before  us  a  pic- 
ture of  the  job. 

Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walter  say  they  have  had 
a  pleasant  holiday.  The  technocrats  with  whom 
they  have  come  in  contact  during  that  holiday 
know  that  they  have  done  a  good  job  of  work 
and  will  honor  them  for  it.  Section  1,  R.D. 
12349    gives    them    a    welcome    home    and    a 


SALUTE! 


TECHNOCRACY  MARCHES  ON! 


Once  again  Technocracy  Inc.  Sec.  1  R.D. 
12349  has  reached  a  point  in  its  development 
which  necessitates  the  occupation  of  larger 
quarters.  This  time  a  move  will  be  made  from 
its  present  second  story  office  to  a  ground  floor 
space  twenty-five  by  one  hundred  and  twenty 


feet  with  show  window  space  on  the  street. 

Tentative  plans  are  going  forward  to  make 
this  a  "Show-window  of  Modern  Technology" 
displaying  as  many  new  developments  as  pos- 
sible. 


Note  our  new  address,  307  Pender  St.  W. 


\-<>  A 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST  -  Vancouver,  B.  C,  April,  1938 


19 


RECESSION 

By  C.  SAUNDERS,  R.D.  12349 


In  the  opinion  of  Dorothy  Thompson,  in  the 
New  York  Herald-Tribune,  "the  next  thirty 
days  (they  will  be  over  before  this  appears  in 
print)  will  determine  whether  we  are  running 
into  just  a  recession  or  a  serious  depression 
and  a  social  crisis — which  this  country  may  not 
weather." 

She  says  "it  is  the  belief  of  this  column  that 
this  recession  can  be  halted,  provided  that 
seven  things  occur." 

"1.  That  a  genuinely  equitable  settlement  is 
reached  on  the  utilities  question."  What 
does  equitable  mean,  Miss  Thompson? 

"2.  That  the  railroads  are  salvaged."  Miss 
Thompson  may  mean,  that  the  "unfair" 
truck  and  trailer  competition  be  stifled,  or 
that  the  accumulation  of  water  be  squeezed 
out  of  the  railroads'  financial  superstruc- 
ture, or  even  that  they  should  still  further 
modernize  their  equipment,  thus  still  fur- 
ther reducing  the  man-hours  required  to 
move  a  ton  of  freight;  we  trust  that  the 
last  mentioned  is  her  meaning. 

"3.  That  the  system  of  Federal  taxation  is  re- 
vised to  furnish  incentive  for  capital 
investment  and  re-employment."  Poor  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  all  his  babying  of  corporate 
enterprise  goes  unrecognized! 

"4.  That  no  farm  bill  is  passed  which  will 
reintroduce  the  radical  planning  features 
of  the  A.A.A." 

"5.  That  no  legislation  is  passed  which  will 
have  the  effect  of  seriously  increasing  pro- 
duction costs." 

"6  That  some  great  new  horizontal  expansion 
is  given  impetus,  which  will  not  make  a 
drain  on  the  public  purse — probably  in 
housing."  Here,  indeed,  is  a  problem 
worthy  of  any  politician.  In  the  years 
1930-37  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand 
new  dwellings  were  constructed  each  year; 
in  the  years  1923-29  the  annual  average 
was  eight  hundred  thousand,  nearly  four 
and  a  half  times  as  much!  Why  is  it,  Miss" 
Thompson,  that  when  production  generally, 
during  1936-37,  equalled  and  even  in  some 
lines  exceeded  the  pre-depression"  years, 
that   the   construction  of  dwelling  houses 


lagged  so  far  behind? 

It  can  hardly  be  that  few  of  us  wanted  new 
homes.  Can  it  possibly  be  that  we  haven't  had 
the  price  ?  Even  that  would  hardly  be  a  satis- 
factory explanation,  for  we  rarely  had  the  price 
even  in  boom  days,  but  we  could  generally  raise 
enough  of  a  mortgage  to  do  the  job  with  the 
aid  of  a  little  co-operation  from  a  job-hungry 
contractor. 

For  instance,  here  is  what  we  would  do:  We 
wanted  a  three-thousand-dollar  house,  which 
the  contractor  was  equally  anxious  to  build  for 
us.  What,  then,  kept  us  apart?  Nothing  at  all, 
Miss  Thompson.  The  procedure  was  simple. 
The  contractor  would  first  trade  us  his  three- 
hundred-dollar  lot  for  our  "used-to-he"  three- 
hundred-dollar  gramophone.  Then  he  would 
agree  to  build  a  three-thousand-dollar  house  on 
it  for  the  sum  of  four  thousand  dollars,  to  be 
paid  for  as  follows:  The  house  and  lot  being 
"conservatively"  valued  at  five  thousand  dol- 
lars, it  would  be  possible  to  raise  a  permanent 
first  mortgage  of  sixty  per  cent  of  the  gross 
value  of  the  property,  say  three  thousand  dol- 
lars, the  balance  of  one  thousand  dollars  would 
be  cared  for  by  a  second  mortgage,  repayable 
monthly.  The  proceeds  of  the  first  mortgage 
would  be  paid  to  the  contractor  and  he  would 
promptly  discount  the  second  mortgage  for 
perhaps  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  This 
sum,  less  his  loss  on  the  sale  of  the  "used-to-be- 
worth"  three  -  hundred  -  dollar  gramophone, 
would  be  his  profit.  Everyone  would  now  be 
happy,  until  the  depression  and  the  consequent 
dearth  of  wages  and  salaries  out  of  which  to 
service  the  various  mortgages. 

Miss  Thompson  now  puts  it  squarely  up  to 
the  politicians,  to  supply  wages  and  salaries  to 
us,  the  general  public,  in  large  enough  quanti- 
ties to  make  us  competent  to  borrow  the  money 
to  build  more  homes;  and  all  without  putting  a 
drain  on  the  public  purse,  and  that  in  face  of 
the^  activities  of  the  technologists,  who  so  per- 
sistently relegate  man-hours,  which  formerly 
were  in  receipt  of  those  wages  and  salaries,  to 
the  scrap  heap.  Fie!  Fie!  Miss  Thompson,  how 
could  you  be  so  hard  hearted? 

The  seventh  of  that  hard-hearted  Miss 
Thompson's  requirements  is  final — "That  the 
budget  is  not  seriously  unbalanced"! 


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^■■^■H 


SOCIAL  MECHANICS    OF  THE   POWER  AGE 

A    PUBLICATION    OF    R.  D.    1234-9 
VANCOUVER,   B.  C, 


NO.  BB^MmY:^  %&&& 


TEN   CENTS 


-  Social  Objectives  - 


Technocracy's  survey  of  the  economic  situation  in  North 
America  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  development 
a  process  of  progressive  social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instabilty  exceeds  the  limits  of  social 
tolerance,  and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be  installed  on  the 
Continent  a  social  mechanism  competent  to  meet  the  needs 
of  its  people. 

Technocracy  finds  further  that  the  day  when  social  opera- 
tions on  this  Continent  can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now  necessary  that  there  be 
applied  in  the  social  field  the  quantitative  methods  of 
physical  science. 

Technocracy,  therefore,  proposes  that  the  North  American 
Continent  be  operated  as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This  control  would  operate  the 
area  under  a  balanced-load  system  of  production  and 
distribution,  whereunder  there  would  be  distributed  purchas- 
ing power  commensurate  with  the  resources  and  the  continu- 
ous full-load  operation  of  the  physical  equipment,  with  the 
guarantee  of  a  high  standard  of  living,  equality  of  income, 
and  economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of  working  hours,  to 
every  adult  inhabitant. 

Technocracy  is  not  a  political  party.  It  has  nothing  in 
common  with  communism,  fascism,  or  any  other  social 
philosophy.  It  is  the  'Technological  Army  of  the  New 
America,'  an  organization  with  a  social  objective  formulated, 
officered,  and  staffed  by  North  Americans  as  the  only 
solution  to  the  unique  crisis  facing  this  Continent. 

Technocracy  Inc.  may  take  political  action,  but  it  would 
only  do  so  when  the  organization  is  sufficiently  trained, 
disciplined,  and  widespread  to  permit  the  simultaneous  exe- 
cution in  all  parts  of  one  of  this  Continent's  principal 
national  entities.  If  Technocracy  Inc.  takes  political  action 
it  will  be  the  last  political  action,  as  such  action  would  be 
taken  solely  for  the  abolition  of  the  Price  System  and  its 
accompanying  political  adminstration  and  the  transition 
into  the  functional  mechanism  of  a  Technate. 

At  this  stage,  therefore,  the  objectives  of  Technocracy  Inc. 
are  the  education  of  the  people  of  North  America 
to  a  realization  of  the  conditions  behind  the  social 
crisis,  and  second,  the  organization  of  all  those  willing  to 
investigate  and  interest  themselves  into  an  informed, 
disciplined,  and  functionally  capable  body  whose  knowledge 
and  ability  can  be  called  upon  to  prevent  chaos  in  North 
America  at  the  time,  now  imminent,  when  the  Price  System 
can  no  longer  be  made  to  operate. 


Technocracy  Is  America's  Only 

Social  Movement  Born  in 

America  of  America's  Problems 

and  Composed  of  and 

Officed  by 

North  Americans 


TECHnOCRflCV 

■  GES 


May,  1940 


Vancouver,  B.  C. 


No.  68 


.  .  .  STAFF  .  .  . 

W.  D.  ELLWYN,  Editor 

CHARLES   SAUNDERS,  Associate  Ed. 

S.  BUSKI,  Circulation  Manager 

K.  J.  NELSON,  Production  Manager 

V.   A.   KNUDSEN,   News   Research 

D.  HILDRED,  Section  Reporter 

.  .  .  THIS  ISSUE  .  .  . 

Common  Sense  Plays  Common  Tricks  3 

Our  Greatest  Need  Is  Patriotism 4 

The  American  People  Are  Awakening  5 

The  Relief  Scene  in  California  6 

Coupons  for  1940  7 

Digest-ing  the  News    10 

Field  Activities 13 

Section  Reports 14 

.  .  .  OFFICIAL  LITERATURE  .  .  . 

Pamphlets 

Introduction   to   Technocracy    25c 

Science  vs.   Chaos  10c 

America  Must  Show  the  Way  10c 

Mystery   of   Money   10c 

The  Energy  Certificate  10c 

Can   You  Qualify?    10c 

Technocracy  in  Plain  Terms  5c 

Periodicals 

Technocracy,  Official  Magazine,  155  East    44th     St.,     New 

York,  N.  Y.  Subscription  rates:  $1.50  for  12  issues,  $1.00 

for  8. 
The  Technocrat,  1007  S.  Grand  Ave.,  Los  Angeles.  15c  per 

copy,  $1.50  for  12  issues,  $1.00  for  8  issues. 
Northern  Technocrat,  Box  371,  Edmonton  Alberta.  10c  per 

copy,  $1.00  for  12  issues. 
Northwest  Technocrat,  Box  1003,  Portland,  Oregon.  10c  per 

copy.  $1.00  for  12  issues. 
Eighty-One  Forty-One,  438  The     Old     Arcade,     Cleveland, 

Ohio.  10c  per  copy.  $1.00  for  12  issues. 
Technocratic  America,  Fontana,  California.  5c  per  copy,  50c 

per  12  issues. 
Prairie  Technocrat,  342  Main  Street,     Winnipeg,     Man.     5c 

per  copy.  50c  for  12  issues. 
The  Desert  Salute,  Hinkley,  California.  Gratis. 


Technocracy  Digest  Is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349, 
Technocracy  Jnc,  at  307  West  Pender  St.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies 
are  10c.  and  yearly  subscriptions  $1.00;  bundles  of  ten  or  more  copies 
are  at  8c.  per  copy.  When  remitting  please  make  money  orders  payable 
to  Technocracy  Digest.  Technocracy  Digest  is  entered  at  the  Post  Office 
Department  at  Ottawa,  as  second  class  matter.  Printed  in  Canada. 
Note:  All  of  the  items  listed  may  be  obtained  in  bundles  at  special  rated. 


Common  Sense  Plays 
Common  Tricks 


By  Charles  Saunders,  12349-5 


Technocracy  points  out  that  the  'common  sense'  approach 
is  the  'economist'  method — a  great  deal  of  conviction  and 
very  few  facts. 


GEORGE  F.  NORDENHOLT,  editor  of  Product 
Engineering,  has  recently  debunked  common 
sense.  He  says,  'If  a  machine  part,  with  a  hole  in  it, 
fractures  across  the  hole,  common  sense  dictates  that 
the  part  part  should  be  made  thicker,  or  the  hole 
omitted.  But  a  closer  analysis  of  the  problem  might 
show  that  the  necessary  strength  can  be  obtained  by 
putting"  more  holes  in  the  piece.' 

The  common  sense  of  American  businessmen  and 
politicians  decided  that  if  America's  Price  System 
could  not  operate  with  goods  and  services  as  abundant 
as  they  have  been  they  must  be  plowed  under  until 
prices  rise  to  a  remunerative  level.  Or  more  recently, 
it  has  been  suggested  that  if  Europeans  cannot  afford 
to  buy  enough  of  our  output  to  keep  us  at  work,  then 
some  way  might  be  found  of  letting  them  have  a 
portion  of  our  useless  gold,  now  in  cold  storage,  to 
bolster  up  their  purchasing  power.  A  closer  analysis 
might  cause  us  to  ask  if  there  is  any  way  for  a  creditor 
country  to  export  more  goods  than  received  in  re- 
turn, short  of  making  a  permanent,  very  permanent, 
foreign  investment;  or  giving  them  away.  The  nega- 
tive answer  to  that  question  might  prompt  a  fur- 
ther query.  If  goods  have  to  be  given  away  in  order 
to  keep  us  busy  why  not  do  the  giving  at  home;  And 
why  be  so  'mingy'  about  it?  Why  not  do  the  thing 
on  a  grand  scale,  keep  everybody  in  the  country  sup- 
plied with  all  he  can  use — why  not  Technocracy? 

'Common  sense,'  says  Mr.  Nordenholt,  'is  nothing  more 
than  preconceived  notions  and  convictions  that  cannot  be 
substantiated  by  facts  and  figures.  Often  conclusions 
that  are  based  on  common  sense  are  forced  upon  us  by 
our  prejudices. 

'Sublime  faith  in  common  sense  is  perhaps  the  greatest 
impediment  to  the  works  of  man  in  the  many  spheres  of 
his  activity.  It  is  equally  effective  in  the  instigation  of 
destructive  enterprise  and  as  the  throttler  of  progress. 
Scarcity  means  higher  prices,  therefore  artifically  restrict 
production  to  gain  prosperity.  Increased  payrolls  mean 
greater  purchasing  power,  therefore  dole  out  money,  lots 
of  it,  to  bring  back  prosperity.  The  fact  that  neither  of 
these  two  objectives  were  accomplished  by  the  means  used 
has  not  shaken   the  common   sense  faith   of  many.' 

'Evei-y  day  engineers  are  faced  with  suggestions  that  run 
counter  to  common  sense.  It  is  high  tribute  to  the  pro- 
fession that  they  do  so  many  things  that  are  contrary  to 
common  sense.  If  they  didn't,  expensive  stainless  steel  would 
not  be  used  as  a  structural  material,  precious  metals  would 
still  be  useless,  domestic  refrigerators  would  still  be  a 
novelty,    and   radios   would   still    cost   four   hundred   dollars 


each.  And  the  powers  of  ignorance  would  still  prevail. 
But  engineers  have  learned  that  there  are  many  ways  of 
doing  things,  and  that  the  full  possibilities  of  a  new  design 
can  only  be  established  by  a  complete  analysis,  by  making 
researches  and  tests,  and  by  replacing  suppositions  with 
facts 

'The  engineer  sticks  to  the  axiom  that  by  all  the  laws  of 
common  sense   it  is   only  the  facts  that  count. 

Common  Sense 

Mr.  Nordenholt  has  done  well,  but  he  could  have 
done  better.  He  could  have  said  that  only  a  com- 
plete analysis  of  the  operating  characteristics  of  Am- 
erica's Price  System,  and  a  statistical  survey  of  the 
energy  and  mineral  resources  upon  which  it  is  based, 
could  supply  the  answer  to  the  problem  that  has  to 
be  solved.  He  could  have  said  that  Technocracy  Inc. 
has  completed  that  analysis  and  made  that  survey, 
and  that  it  behooves  the  engineering  profession  to 
make  a  professional  examination  of  the  findings.  He 
could  have  promised  that  insofar  as  'Product  Engi- 
neering' was  concerned  he  was  prepared  to  commit 
that  publication  to  stand  or  fall  upon  those  findings 
if  they  stood  up  to  a  professional  examination.  Per- 
haps it  is  not  yet  to  late  for  Mr.  Nordenholt  to  make 
one  more  excursion  into  the  realms  of  'common  sense'. 


Needed-More  Props 

Speaking  in  Vancouver,  B.  C.  recently,  Norman 
MacKenzie  of  the  Extension  Department  of  Francis 
Xavier  University,  Nova  Scotia,  said: 

'This  talk  of  democracy  sends  shivers  down  my 
back.  It's  like  a  steeple  built  out  of  plumb,  held  up 
by  props  and  beams,  represented  by  old  age  pensions, 
workman's  compensation,  relief  and  the  like.' 

We  do  not  know  the  motive  behind  this  caustic 
comment,  but  we  do  know  that  it  is  very  apt,  for  not 
only  is  the  steeple  of  democracy  very  much  out  of 
plumb,  but  the  very  foundations  are  rotten  and  sink- 
ing fast;  in  fact  its  condition  clearly  shows  a  need  for 
the  application  of  scientific  principles  to  rebuild  it.  No 
amount  of  political  legislation,  economic  juggling  or 
moral  reamament  can  rectify  the  mistakes  of  the  ori- 
ginal construction  gang,  nor  the  hopeless  inefficiency 
of  the  maintenance  crew. 


'Like  a  human  being,  business  stands  only  so  many 
hypodermics,   then  it  dies.' 

C.  and  O.  Lines  Magazine 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


PAGE    THREE 


Our  Greatest  Need 
Is  Patriotism 


If  Civilization  is  to  continue  on  this  Continent,  a  real 
North  American  patriotism  must  be  aroused  here  before 
present  trends  have  progressed  too  far. 


ON  this,  the  wealthiest  of  all  Continents  on  earth, 
most  of  our  circumstances  are  unique.  Here  an 
abundance  of  food  means  more  people  ill-fed;  abun- 
dance of  cotton  means  more  people  ill-clothed;  abun- 
dance of  housing  material  means  more  people  ill- 
housed;  and  an  abundance  of  transportation  facilities 
means  more  people  without  transportation.  Nowhere 
else  on  earth  could  such  stupidities  obtain,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  nowhere  else  could  there  be  such  an 
abundance. 

There  is  at  present  another  factor  in  our  environ- 
ment that  is  both  abundant  and  unique.  That  factor 
is  commonly  called  'patriotism.'  The  word  'patriot- 
ism' ordinarily  denotes  loyalty  to  one's  country,  and 
a  willingness  to  sacrifice  for  those  things  within  one's 
homeland  that  one  holds  most  dear.  That  definition 
might  hold  in  most  parts  of  the  world,  but  seemingly 
not  here  in  North  America. 

Here  our  population  is  made  up  largely  of  European 
stock — German,  Polish,  French,  Greek,  English,  Rus- 
sian, Scotch,  Irish,  etc.  All  have  adopted  this  Con- 
tinent as  their  home,  not  because  they  could  do  more 
for  North  America  than  they  could  do  for  their  home- 
land, but  because  North  America  could  do  more  for 
them. 

No  North  Americans? 

In  the  chain  of  events  there  arrives  a  time  of  inter- 
national friction,  brought  about  by  the  stirring  up  of 
political  fears  and  hates.  Overnight  North  America 
loses  millions  of  its  'patriots.'  We  find  we  have  here 
patriotic  Germans,  Poles,  Englishmen,  Russians, 
Frenchmen,  etc.,  but  seemingly  very  few  patriotic 
North  Americans. 

Throughout  history  the  human  being  has  been  ex- 
pected, even  forced,  to  demonstrate  his  allegiance  to 
the  land  that  gives  him  a  living,  but  on  this  Conti- 
nent we  find  hundreds  of  thousands  who  declare  that 
loyalty  to  some  other  country  is  the  only  true  patriot- 
ism. Yet  North  America  is  the  home,  the  fount  of 
sustenance  for  all  of  them!  So  unique  is  the  situation 
here  that  those  who  declare  their  loyalty  to  the  land 
that  feeds  them  are,  in  some  quarters,  denounced  as 
unpatriotic. 

All  of  us  see  that  we  have  goods  of  all  kinds  on 
hand,  unused  and  furnishing  an  unwelcome  burden 
to  government  and  business.  The  rating  'patriots'  of 
the  day  demand  that  our  supplies  be  sent  away  to 
Europe.   Those  supplies  must  be  given  to  Europe  free, 


if  at  all,  as  Europe  has  practically  nothing  that  we 
want  or  need  to  exchange.  The  demand  is  that  we 
must  send  the  supplies,  even  though  we  pay  for  them 
ourselves.  Those  citizens  of  this  Continent  who  de- 
clare that  the  unused  goods  of  this  Continent  should 
be  put  to  use  for  North  Americans  are  pointed  out  as 
traitors.  Under  present  conditions  one  must  be  cour- 
ageous indeed  to  suggest  that  the  needy  of  this  Con- 
tinent have  the  use  of  their  own  material! 

Here  in  North  America  there  are  between  40,000,000 
and  50,000,000  people  who  are  living  at  starvation 
level.  The  ill-fed,  ill-clothed,  ill-housed  portion  of  the 
population  of  the  world's  richest  Continent  is  as 
great  in  number  as  the  entire  population  of  the  British 
Isles,  an  area  capable  of  supporting  only  15,000,000  or 
20,000,000  people.     We  are  indeed  unique! 

For  twenty  years  there  has  been  growing  on  this 
Continent  an  Organization  of  North  American  pat- 
riots; an  Organization  of  citizens  whose  first  obligation 
is  to  the  land  that  gives  them  a  living;  an  Organization 
which,  growing  stupendously  year  by  year,  is  destin- 
ed to  lead  the  first  mass  movement  in  human  history. 
That  North  American  Organization,  now  known  as 
Technocracy  Incorporated  has  been  experiencing  each 
year  a  greater  growth  rate  than  the  year  previous  and 
already  the  'mass'  is  becoming  perceptible. 

Evidence  of  the  presence  and  influence  of  this  North 
American  Organization  is  to  be  found  in  all  parts  of 
the  Continent.  The  Monad,  symbol  of  unity  and  bal- 
ance, is  also  the  symbol  of  Technocracy  Inc.  and  greets 
one  at  every  turn.  The  official  grey  and  vermilion 
Technocracy  Inc.  is  ever  more  frequently  seen  on 
automobiles  along  the  highways  and  on  boats  upon 
the  waterways  of  this  Continent.  The  grey  of  the 
official  dress  is  to  be  seen  wherever  people  congregate. 

Technocracy  Points  the  Way 

Studying  and  disseminating  only  exact,  factual 
material,  the  members  of  this  Organization,  the  Tech- 
nocrats, have  completely  changed  the  thinking  of  the 
citizens  of  North  America.  The  preponderance  of 
reading  material  used  on  this  Continent  is  swinging 
progressively  from  the  fanciful  to  the  factual.  That 
comfort  and  feeling  that  is  engendered  by  high  hopes 
and  indefinite  promises  is  losing  its  appeal  to  North 
Americans.  They  are  losing  'faith  in  hopes'  and  are 
beginning  to  demand  the  satisfaction  of  factual  in- 
formation and  scientific  prediction — they  want  to 
know  where  they  are  going. 

Technocracy,  defined    as    'Science    applied    to    the 


PAGE     FOUR 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER.     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


Social  Order,'  is  scientific  in  every  phase  and  is  com- 
pletely equipped  to  show  the  people  of  this  area  where 
they  are  going  and  how  they  are  going  to  get  there. 

The  present  irreversible  and  unidirectional  trends 
of  the  Price  System  on  this  Continent  are  toward 
more  debt,  more  relief,  more  unemployed,  more  sur- 
plus; toward  more  instability  and  more  insecurity. 
There  is  rapidly  approaching  a  time  of  negative  social 
tolerance,  when  a  complete  change  of  the  operating 
methods  will  be  imperative;  that  change  will  be  effect- 
ed quickly  and  smoothly,  or  not  at  all.  Too  great  de- 
lay in  applying  a  new  method  of  operation  could  re- 
sult only  in  a  complete  breakdown  of  our  highly  inter- 
dependent, inter-locking  social  mechanism,  with  the 
resultant  social  chaos. 


Technocracy  Inc.  is  busy  disseminating  exact  in- 
formation relative  to  our  Social  Order.  Technocracy 
indicates  that  the  only  activity  on  this  Continent  that 
is  patiiotic  to  North  America  is  that  activity  which 
tends  to  make  secure  the  equipment,  the  lives  and 
well-being  of  the  citizens  of  this  Continent.  Tech- 
nocracy is  offering  to  every  intelligent  citizen  an  op- 
portunity to  demonstrate  real  loyalty  to  the  most 
wonderful  of  all  lands.  No  appeal  is  made  to  the 
emotionally  unstable.  Only  those  who  are  interested 
in  the  stark  reality  of  our  insecurity  are  attracted  by 
the  significance  of  the  facts  which  form  the  only  wea- 
pons of  Technocrats  in  their  battle  against  the  tre- 
mendous stupidity  and  inertia  of  their  fellow  citizens. 

W.  D.  E. 


The  American  People 
Are  Awakening 


By  Grace  Rosamond  Martin 


The  citizens  of  this  Continent  are  gradually  shaking  off  the 
stupor  of  the  centuries.  Let  not  the  awakening  be  too 
late! 


AMERICAN  people  are  at  last  awakening  to  the 
fact  that  politics  cannot  possibly  improve  our 
present  deplorable  conditions,  or  furnish  us  with 
means  by  which  we  can  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being  on  this  Continent  for  long. 

In  North  America  man  has  tried  to  keep  pace  and 
peace  with  his  fellow  man;  he  knows  that  by  continual 
quarreling  he  cannot  expect  to  gain  health  or  happi- 
ness. Man  has  been  seeking  for  a  way  out.  The  peo- 
ple of  America  today  wish  to  know  if  it  is  possible  for 
man  to  live  a  full  and  abundant  life;  people  know  that 
there  is  an  abundance  to  be  had,  if  proper  distribu- 
tion can  be  made.  Americans  are  learning  now  that 
only  Technocracy  can  do  that  for  them.  Our  citizens 
have  watched  the  destruction  of  the  necessities  of  life, 
and  cannot  fail  to  know  that  ultimately  it  means  the 
destruction  of  man. 

Man  hours  have  been  and  are  being  reduced  daily, 
for  this  is  the  machine  age.  Machines  created  for  the 
comfort  and  convenience  of  man  are  being  allowed  to 
work  his  progressive  destruction. 

Critical  times  are  just  ahead.  The  people  of  North 
America  want  a  program  that  will  extricate  them 
from  the  present  and  future  difficulties,  for  they  have 
learned  by  experience  that  parties  and  politics  only 
work  for  the  favored  few  that  control  the  'Price  Sys- 
tem'; that  few  is  constantly  diminishing  and  now  only 
government  aid  makes  it  possible  for  them  to  collect. 

We  have  watched  out  cost  of  living  rise  and  our 
taxes  mount,  while  our  securities  have  been  battered 
down  relentlessly  until  they  have  almost  faded  away 
entirely.  We  have  made  no  headway  against  the 
avalanche  of  destruction  necessitated  by  the  continued 


operation  of  the  present  out-moded  and  obsolete  form 
of  social  control. 

It  is  only  through  the  sane  facing  of  facts  that  life 
can  be  lived  full  and  abundantly.  Through  measur- 
able things  alone  can  we  be  sure  of  anything  and  we 
might  just  as  well  undestand  that  only  by  the  factual 
things  can  the  security  of  life,  peace  and  happiness  be 
assured. 

Those  engineers  who  have  dared  to  set  forth  Tech- 
nocracy in  all  its  simplicity  so  that  even  a  child  may 
understand,  have  paved  the  way  for  a  New  America 
with  stability  and  security  for  all  inhabitants.  The 
New  America  will  not  allow  its  youth  to  be  wasted 
nor  its  older  people  to  suffer  from  privations. 

The  youth  of  America  must  be  given  an  opportunity 
to  advance,  for  it  is  the  youth  of  today  that  must 
guide  the  destinies  of  America's  tomorrow. 

Education  has  not  weakened  our  young  people,  they 
have  simply  not  had  enough  along  factual  lines.  The 
youth  must  be  taught  that  through  Technocracy  he 
will  have  opportunities  that  have  never  been  given 
to  the  young  on  this  earth  before;  that  he  can 
and  must  develop  along  any  line  that  he  chooses  and 
will  have  ample  supply  for  all  his  needs  during  his 
educational  period,  and  thereafter. 

We  must  with  unerring  aim  teach  our  people  that 
only  Technocracy  can  assure  the  citizen  and  his  de- 
pendents of  a  full  and  sufficient  living  according  to 
his  needs. 

It  was  long  ago  said  by  political  leaders,  that  to  con- 
trol the  vote  it  was  necessary  to  keep  some  of  the  peo- 
ple hungry  all  the  time.  The  present  form  of  relief 
has  done  that  successfully.     Most  of  the  people  have 


TECHNOCRACY     DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


PAGE     FIVE 


been  hungry  part  of  the  time  and  some  of  them  have 
been  hungry  all  the  time. 

People  have  been  allowed  to  starve  in  this  country 
of  potential  abundance  while  destruction  of  the  ne- 
cessities of  life  has  been  allowed,  to  the  end  that  the 
'Price  System'  might  go  on. 

The  farther  one  is  removed  from  the  basic  necessi- 
ties of  living,  the  higher  the  approbation  and  remun- 
eration under  this  'Price  System'.  It  is  easily  traced 
all  down  the  line.  Chair-warmers  and  glittering 
trouser  seats  constitute  the  personnel  of  the  many 
duplications  that  draw  large  salaries  in  this  democ- 
racy. If  they  were  not  thus  employed  they  would  be 
on  some  alphabetical  relief,  for  they  must  be  taken 
care  of.  They  represent  only  more  non-functional  em- 
ployment. 

If  the  office  holder  would  use  his  little  brain  for 
thinking  purposes  he  could  not  fail  to  know  what  will 
happen  when  the  tax  payer  can  no  longer  do  his  part; 


soon  we  ordinary  citizens  will  be  unable  to  pay  suf- 
ficient taxes.  How  long  will  Mr.  Chair-Warmer  have 
a  place  to  sit  until  time  to  go  home  for  his  meals  which 
Mr.  and  Mrs. Taxpayer  have  been  furnishing  for  him, 
even  though  they  were  compelled  to  go  without? 

The  answer  is  a  simple  one;  chair- warmers  will  go 
hungry  along  with  the  rest  of  us  if  present  trends  are 
allowed  to  continue. 

Under  Technocracy  the  abundance  will  be  distri- 
buted; not  to  just  a  few  but  to  each  and  every  one  ac- 
cording to  the  amount  he  can  use.  We  will  not  have 
to  keep  on  buying  our  homes  through  continual  taxes 
nor  will  we  have  them  taken  away  from  us,  for  taxes 
and  politics,  as  part  of  the  Price  System,  will  have  no 
place. 

This  New  America  through  Technocracy  will  give 
us  a  scientific  way  of  living  a  full  and  abundant  life. 

Let's  get  ready  to  install  that  new  Order  of 
Abundance! 


The  Relief  Scene  in 
California 


By  W.  J.  Grandoschek,  11835-1 


America  needs  a  new  relief — a  relief  from  debt,  privation 
and  fear,  from  superstition,  philosophy  and  uncertainty. 
Only  Technocracy  can  provide  that  form  of  relief. 


IT  can't  go  on.  We  are  entering  the  second  decade 
of  depression.  We  have  no  jobs,  no  money,  and 
naturally  no  purchasing  power  to  buy  what  is  pro- 
duced. Each  day  that  dawns  is  another  day  without 
hope.  This  is  a  cross  section  of  the  thoughts  of  thou- 
sands of  relief  clients  and  unemployed. 

Not  long  ago  thousands  of  reliefers  from  different 
parts  of  our  Golden  State  converged  upon  Sacramen- 
to to  demonstrate  before  Governor  Olson  with  re- 
ference to  vetoing  the  two  emergency  relief  bills; 
one  for  $1,600,000;  and  the  other  for  $12,200,000.  The 
money  is  supposed  to  last  till  June.  But  will  it?  Local 
politicians  estimated  that  various  forms  of  relief 
amount  to  $15,000,000  a  month.  Statistically,  it  is 
more  than  obvious  that  the  amount  is  insufficient.  But 
it  is  sufficient  to  give  every  protagonist  of  the  Price 
System  a  first  class  headache. 

Following  the  demonstration  at  the  Capitol,  the 
Governor  vetoed  the  bills.  The  Legislature  answered 
the  Governor  by  overriding  his  veto.  The  answer  to 
the  relief  clients  took  the  form  of  the  cutting  of  all 
SRA  checks  forty  per  cent.  That  was  the  only  altern- 
ative. Everything  is  being  done  to  prevent  the  system 
from  cracking.  But  the  cracks  are  already  too  big. 
Even  a  first  class  mason  couldn't  do  anything  now. 
SRA  check  writers  had  to  work  overtime  to  get 
checks  out  for  the  28th  of  February.  The  rush  was 
necessary  because  at  first  all  relief  checks  were  or- 
dered cancelled. 

The   following  is  an  excerpt  from  the  Bakersfield 


Californian: 

'Disbursements  by  the  SRA  during  the  first  seven 
months  of  the  fiscal  year  which  began  last  July  1  have 
been  averaging  approximately  40  per  cent  above  those 
for  the  same  months  of  the  preceding  year,  and  the 
temporary  bill  cuts  below  actual  expenditures  in  1939 
by  nearly  $1,000,000  a  month.' 

The  cracks  in  the  system  of  Price  are  too  big.  In- 
stead of  a  mason  we  need  a  new  structure.  And  that 
new  structure  for  North  America  is  Technocracy. 
Perhaps,  it  is  not  wanted.  But  as  a  consequence  of 
natural  causes  it  will  be  here  just  the  same.  And  at 
the  present  rate  of  the  progress  of  events,  Technoc- 
racy is  right  at  the  threshold. 

Relentlessly  the  electorate  is  being  misled.  New 
successes  are  scored  in  the  business  of  getting  the 
average  man  to  croak  like  a  frog  when  he  is  told  to. 
Propaganda  has  an  important  place  in  maintaining  the 
dying"  Price  Svstem. 

Mr.  Goofy 

Not  long  ago  a  certain  magazine  printed  a  large  pic- 
ture of  the  typical  citizen  who  believes  everything 
the  Price  System  propagandists  want  him  to.  To  the 
left  of  Mr.  Goofy  is  a  lady  syndicate  writer,  and  to 
the  right  sits  the  usual  radio  commentator,  or  news 
violator  as  any  news  distortioner  is  known  to  Techno- 
crats. The  accompanying  editorial  screeches: 

'Don't  be  a  sap!'  Read  your  own  newspaper;  do 
your  own  thinking  about  what  you  read  in  it.'  Quite 
sarcastic,  are  they  not?     It  might  be  suggested  here 


PAGE   six 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


that  a  subscription  to  one  of  Technocracy's  magazines 
would  spare  Mr.  Goofy 's  thinking  apparatus  a  lot  of 
unnecessary  wading  through  newspaper  tripe  in  the 
hope  of  discovering  an  occasional  fact. 

A  most  important  section  of  the  dying  Price  System 
is  the  propaganda  division.  This  is  the  technique.  A 
catchy  phrase  or  slogan  is  used.  After  several  repetit- 
ions Mr.  Goofy  gets  it.  He  says  it  over  a  few  times.  He 
believes  it  and  then  croaks  it.  Soon  everybody  in 
town  is  caught  with  it.  This  is  especially  true  during 
a  major  political  campaign. 

The  facts  do  not  'lie.'  A  heartless  and  continuous 
depression  is  with  us.  Do  you  realize  that  while  the 
average  unemployed  man  was  vainly  searching  for 
that  around-the-corner  job  that  the  Price  System  can 
no  longer  provide,  the  Federal  government  has  been 


spending  a  million  dollars  (1938)  a  minute.  During 
the  months  of  July,  August,  September,  and  October 
of  1938,  the  Federal  government  expended  nearly 
$3,000,000,000. 

Now  rumors  are  current  that  soon  all  forms  of  re- 
lief and  WPA  will  be  stopped.  That  would  remove 
the  last  vestige  of  security  from  thousands  of  families 
in  the  several  states,  and  put  them  on  the  streets. 
With  the  suspension  of  the  CCC  thousands  of  youths 
will  join  the  ex-reliefers,  and  the  already-unemploy- 
ed not  on  relief.  Grand  result:  more  misery,  more 
suffering,  more  youths  walking  the  tracks,  and  more 
unemployment  than  when  Roosevelt  took  office  the 
first  time.  Finally,  the  arrival  of  a  point  of  negative 
social  tolerance  and  the  scramble  to  get  onto  Tech- 
nocracy's  streamlined   'bandwagon'! 


Coupons  for  1940 


By  V.  A.  Knudsen,  12349-1 


Stores  are  creating  their  own  kind  of  money,  called  cou- 
pons, in  the  hope  that,  in  some  way,  this  ficticious  money 
will  be  redeemed  with  real  money. 


THE  ABSURDITIES  of  the  Price  System's  strug- 
gles to  delay  it's  own  inevitable  demise  become 
more  amusing  to  observe. 

Because  of  the  continuous  decline  in  purchasing 
power  of  our  North  American  population,  while  at 
the  same  time  our  industrial  capacity  to  produce  con- 
tinuously increases,  new  and  divers  methods  were  in- 
troduced into  the  high  pressure  sales  technique  dur- 
ing the  year  of  grace,  1939. 

One  of  the  most  outstanding  of  these  new  methods 
was  foisted  upon  an  unsuspecting  public  quite  some 
time  ago  here  in  the  city  of  Vancouver.  As  far  as  we 
know  the  Hudsons  Bay  Co.,  the  'aristocrat'  of  Van- 
couver's Department  Stores,  gave  birth  to  the  scheme. 
This  new  method  of  'snaring'  the  few  remaining  dol- 
lars, which  are  still  at  large  among  the  people,  is  cal- 
led by  such  high  sounding  names  as  'Advance  Credit 
Account',  and  'Credit  Coupon  Account'.  The  in- 
ventory balloon  is  nearing  the  bursting  point  and  the 
chisellers  are  frantically  trying  to  insert  a  safety 
valve. 

Evidently  this  new  type  of  'snare'  must  be  working 
well.  We  find  now  that  department  stores  in  other 
parts  of  the  Continent  are  taking  to  the  scheme  like 
ducks  to  water.  We  have  just  had  word  from  Akron 
Ohio,  that  stores  in  that  city  are  advertising  'Coupon 
Credit  Accounts'  to  their  customers.  The  resistance 
of  the  patient  is  low  and  the  disease  is  spreading. 

To  give  the  reader  an  idea  how  this  new  high  pres- 
sure sales  method  works,  we  will  quote  parts  from  a 
circular  sent  to  all  executives  and  employees  in  an 
Akron  Store. 

'In  order  to  facilitate  the  purchase  of  wearing 
apparel   and  other    merchandise    on    convenient 


terms,  effective  Monday,  December  11,  1939,  the 
management  announces  a  new  Credit  Service  to 
be  known  as  'Credit  Coupon  Accounts'. 

'This  is  to  be  operated  through  the  form  of  cou- 
pon books  in  denominations  of  $15.00  and  $25.00, 
although  combinations  of  the  two  denominations 
may  be  purchased. 

'Under  the  Advance  Credit  Plan,  coupon  books 
may  be  purchased  on  deferred  payments  in  de- 
nominations of  $15.00  and  $25.00  or  any  multiple 
thereof.  They  will  be  sold  on  two  separate  plans. 
First,  a  ninety-day  plan  on  which  no  down  pay- 
ment will  be  collected;  Under  this  plan  a  ser- 
vice charge  of  40c  shall  be  made  on  the  $15.00 
book.  On  the  $25.00  book  a  service  charge  of  50c 
shall  be  made.  Under  the  second  or  five  month's 
plan  on  a  $25.00  book  a  service  charge  of  63c  is 
made.  A  down  payment  of  $4.63  is  required.  On 
a  combination  sale  of  $25.00  and  a  $15.00  coupon 
book,  total  $40.00  a  service  charge  of  $1.00  shall 
be  charged.  On  combination  of  two  $25.00  books, 
total  $50.00,  a  service  charge  of  $1.26  shall  be 
charged.  This  combination  is  payable  $9.26  down 
-  and  $8.40  per  month  for  five  succeeding  months. 
No  single  $15.00  books  will  be  sold  on  the  five 
months'   plan." 

There  you  are — 'accounts'  galore.  If  you  are  a 
respectable  citizen  with  a  'clean'  record,  you  can  pm 
your  future  earnings,  if  they  materialize,  in  hock,  In 
this  case,  for  as  long  as  five  months.  In  other  words, 
the  stores  are  creating  their  own  kind  of  money,  only 
here  it  is  called  'coupons'  This  is  done  in  order  to 
get  rid  of  the  increasing  pressure  of  commodities, 
for  which  there  is  not  the  immediate  requisite  pur- 
chasing power,  with  the  hope  that  somehow,  in  some- 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


PAGE    SEVEN 


way  this  'fictitious  money'  will  be  redeemed  with 
what  is  called  'real'  money,  although  the  only  dif- 
ference between  the  two  is  superficial.  All  money, 
regardless  of  by  whom,  where  and  how  it  was  made, 
represents  only  one  thing,  the  abstract  verbal  ex- 
pression, 'I  promise  to  pay'! 

Stores  are  adopting  the  same  methods  as  the  gov- 
ernments. They  lend  the  customers  their  own  money 
with  which  to  buy  their  own  goods.  The  govern- 
ments and  the  taxpayers  are  finding  out  what  a  ridi- 
culous procedure  it  is  and  so  will  the  stores.  Yet  it 
must  go  on. 

If  we  were  to  go  on  a  cash  and  carry  basis  on  the 
North  American  Continent  tomorrow,  we  would  pro- 
bably have  an  industrial  and  social  collapse  within 
48  hours,  with  horrible  consequences  to  the  major 
percentage  of  our  population.     Who  wants  that? 

As  Technocracy  indicates,  we  can  and  must,  go 
only  forward.  Forward,  towards  more  debts,  more 
relief,  more  business  in  government,  more  govern- 
ment in  business,  more  taxes,  more  unemployment, 
in  short,  more  disintegration  of  the  Price  System, 
and  finally,  its  complete  elimination.  Such  is  the  de- 
cree  of  Technology! 

The  impact  of  Technology  upon  Price  System  so- 
cial institutions  during  the  last  three  decades  has 
rendered  null  and  void  all  our  present  concepts  of 
social  control  to  such  an  extent  that  an  entirely  new 
method  of  social  control  is  being  forced  upon  us 
whether  we  like  it  or  not;  we  North  Americans  must 
adopt  this  new  method,  the  method  of  function,  or 
become  extinct. 

The  march  of  Technology,  in  its  application  to  the 
means  whereby  we  live,  is  continuously  removing  to 
the  scrap  heap  more  and  more  man-hours,  thereby 
diminishing  purchasing  power  toward  the  vanishing 
point.  Man-hours  employed  in  industry  represents 
the  bulk  of  our  purchasing  power  and  purchasing 
power  is  the  life-blood  of  the  Price  System.  Further- 
more, a  Price  System  is  applicable  to  an  economy  of 
scarcity  only.  Technology,  besides  removing  man- 
hours  from  industry,  at  the  same  time  also  increases 
the  productivity  of  industry;  today  the  increase  has 
become  so  great  that  we  are  now  facing  for  the  first 
time   in  man's  history,   an  abundance. 

We  are  increasing  the  amount  of  goods  and  de- 
creasing the  amount  of  purchasing  power  with  which 
to  buy  these  goods.  Does  the  reader  wonder  now 
why  the  antics  described  above  are  so  highly 
favored  by  the  most  staunch  upholders  of  the  status 
quo? 

Technocracy  predicted  these  trends  and  conditions 
a  decade  ago,  and  the  march  of  events  has  proved 
Technocracy  irrevocably  correct. 

Technocracy  predicted  that  these  trends  would 
most  probably  reach  the  end  of  their  progression  at 
a  time  not  now  distant.  It  behooves  the  citizens  of 
this  Continent  to  begin  an  early  examination  of  the 
basic  factors  that  made  possible  predictions  which 
have,  to  date,  been  consistently  correct. 


Technology  and  the  Egg 
Problem 

EGGS  to-day  are  cheaper  than  they  have  been  for 
a  good  many  years.  The  chicken  men  are  having 
to  'scratch'  harder  for  their  living  than  the  flocks  they 
raise.    What  is  the  reason  ? 

Everyone,  from  the  chicken  men  themselves  to  the 
highest  authority  in  the  country,  is  blaming  everyone 
else.  The  reasons  they  propound  are  many.  The  cures 
are  just  as  numerous;  yet  they  get  nowhere. 

Could  it  be  that  technology  is  taking  a  hand  in  the 
poultry  business?    Let  us  examine  this  aspect. 

Fifteen  years  ago  in  this  Municipality  of  Langley 
the  scattered  farmers  in  all  types  of  the  industry 
raised  their  chicks  from  eggs  via  the  setting  hen, 
kerosene  incubators,  etc.  In  this  short  time  through 
the  use  of  scientific  methods  by  far  the  greater  num- 
ber of  chicks  are  hatched  in  up-to-date  hatcheries. 
This  season  two  local  hatcheries  expect  to  turn  out 
well  over  half  a  million  chicks. 

No  More  Clucking 

In  the  space  of  fifteen  years  or  less  it  has  become 
almost  as  much  as  a  hen's  life  is  worth  for  her  to  start 
clucking.  Like  the  human  being  and  his  labor,  cluck- 
ing is  not  necessary,  nor  will  it  ever  be  again.  Both 
these  means  of  production  are  obsolete.  The  machine 
is  doing  the  clucking  for  the  hen  and  the  machine  is 
doing  the  labor  for  the  man.  It  becomes  increasingly 
obvious  that  the  more  we  produce  the  less  labor  we 
need  and  consequently  we  receive  less  purchasing 
power  (the  mainstay  of  the  Price  System).  When 
bigger  and  better  machines  are  built,  North  America 
will  build  them.  And  out  of  the  remains  of  the  eggs 
that  rot  for  the  want  of  proper  distribution  will  come 
more  eggs  than  ever. 

The  asinine  conviction  that  feeding  another  egg  to 
the  soldiers  will  solve  the  poultry  problems  is  only 
equalled  by  the  suggestion  that  we  would  be  a  health- 
ier race  if  we  shipped  all  the  eggs  out  of  the  country 
and  got  rid  of  them.  The  campaign  to  Eat  More  Eggs 
is  good  advice  and  if  Canadians  accept  it  at  face  value 
this  campaign  will  succeed  in  bringing  poverty  to  the 
meat  industry.  The  same  holds  true,  incidentally,  in 
the  apple  industry,  in  relations  to  other  fruits.  In  a 
country  with  a  limited  purchasing  power  which  is 
rapidly  decreasing,  no  amount  of  these  hypodermic 
injections  will  cure  the  patient.  One  cannot  keep 
peace  in  the  family  by  taking  food  from  one  child  and 
feeding  it  to  the  other. 

So  long  as  egg  producers  eagerly  put  to  use  the  find- 
ings of  science  in  their  production  methods  and  ignore 
science's  method  of  distribution,  their  plight  can  only 
get  more  severe.  And  what  applies  to  egg  production 
in  this  respect,  applies  to  all  other  types  of  industry. 

Technocracy  (Science  applied  to  the  social  order) 
stands  ready  with  the  blue-prints  of  a  scientific  dis- 


PAGE    EIGHT 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B,     C.     MAY— 1940 


9B9Cm  i*^  y '. 

•  V" 

3^ 

mm 

■BR?     "c^i-5."V.i; 

^B 

ftFr 

mUinO 

' 

otiflS 

■M  Mn 

^mjk^^v.       IBflnl 

tribution  system.  No  machine  of  any  consequence 
was  ever  built  without  blue-prints.  America  depends 
more  every  day  on  machines.  If  you  doubt  this,  take  a 
clucking  hen,  get  into  your  democrat  and  go  home- 
steading. 

Only  science  can  solve  problems  created  by  science. 
Science's  survey  has  revealed  that  North  America 
possesses  the  natural  resources,  the  men  and  the  ma- 
chines to  provide  each  citizen  here  with  more  goods 
than  he  can  comfortably  consume.  The  only  barrier 
between  abundance  and  scarcity  to-day  is  man's  in- 
ertia and  his  persistence  in  starving  himself  and  his 
neighbor. 

Eggs  are  good  food.  Technocracy  salutes  the 
poultrymen  of  the  Fraser  Valley  and  wishes  them 
Happy  Landing  in  the  New  America  of  Plenty! 


Forty-Nine  Trips  to 
The  Polls 

WE  have  an  old  saying  that  goes  like  this: — 'Build 
a  better  mousetrap  and  the  world  will  beat 
a  pathway  to  your  door'.  Undoubtedly,  if  the  world 
took  the  trouble  to  invade  your  privacy  in  that  man- 
ner you  would  find  yourself  within  the  pages  of  our 
Metropolitan  Press.  You  would  be  a  'News  Item'. 
In  a  January  issue  of  the  'Vancouver  Daily  Province' 
we  find  a  gentlement  from  Nanaimo  who  has  achieved 
this  doubtful  honour.  He  didn't  build  any  mouse- 
traps, but  he  is  held  up  as  a  glowing  example  of  all 
that  a  citizen  should  be. 

He  has  voted  forty-nine  times! 

Just  think  of  it!  Forty-nine  times  he  has  gone 
nobly  forth  and  firmly  cast  his  ballot  for  the  continu- 
ance of  the  status  quo — A  ballot  for  Mr.  Patullo  and 
his  work  and  wages — a  ballot  for  Dr.  Telford  and  his 
rebounding  inquiries — A  vote  for  Jerry  McGeer  and 
his  suddenly  deflated  righteousness. — A  vote  for  Mr. 
Aberhart  and  his  economic  magic. — A  ballot  cast  for 
Dr.  Manion  and  his  rejuvenated  reactionaries. — and 
so  on,  ad  infinitum! 

Forty-nine  trips  to  the  polls — and  what  has  he  got 
to  show  for  it?  What  became  of  the  forty-nine  cam- 
paign promises  that  he  voted  for?  And  the  forty -nine 
times  forty-nine  excuses  that  were  given?  He  has 
been  forty-nine  times  a  paying  customer  at  the  play 
called  'Political  Futility'  and  apparently  he  hasn't  'got 
the  moral'  yet — for  he  last  voted  in  January — and 
got  out  of  a  hospital  bed  to  do  it! 

The  people  of  all  the  political  entities  on  the  North 
American  Continent  may  some  day  in  the  near  fu- 
ture, have  the  opportunity  to  show  that  they  have 
learned  the  lesson  of  political  futility.  They  may 
have  the  chance  to  vote  for  the  abolition  of  futility. 
Their  vote  on  that  day  will  open  the  era  of  greatest 
efficiency  in  social  control  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
They  will  vote  at  that  time  for  'science  applied  to  the 
social  order'! 

We  would  advise  our  Nanaimo  hero  to  stay  con- 
fined in  the  hospital,  out  of  the  way  of  temptation, 
until  that  vote  is  taken,  or  found  unnecessary. 


Then,  when  he  votes  for  the  fiftieth  time,  our  'news 
item'  fried  will  have  something  to  show  for  it 

Duncan  Slater,  R.  D.  12449 

• 

Economics  of  the  Middle 
Course 

Desirous  of  avoiding  the  totalitarian  consequences 
of  confiscation  and  economic  regimentation  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  explosive  effects  of  monetary  in- 
flation on  the  other,  the  'Monetary  Times'  (Dec.  16) 
was  toying  on  behalf  of  Canada  with  a  very,  very  safe 
and  sane  economic  doctrine  propounded  by  England's 
outstanding  mystic  of  money,  Maynard  Keynes. 
Canada,  it  appears,   is  favorably  impressed. 

In  operation  the  scheme  will  work  out  somewhat 
as  follows: 

1.  Dominion  sells  treasury  bills  or  short-term 
bonds  to  the  banks. 

2.  Dominion  pours  the  proceeds  into  industrial 
expansion,  and  the  immediate  result  is  a  general  in- 
crease of  purchasing  power. 

3.  Assuming  that  increased  purchasing  power  is 
not  accompanied  by  equivalent  increase  in  production 
of  consumer  goods,  rising  payrolls  would  occasion  ris- 
ing prices  and  rising  interest  rates,  and  the  evil  ef- 
fects of  inflation  are  upon  us,  unless — 

4.  And  here  we  have  it.  Taxes  are  now  adjusted 
to  absorb  the  surplus  purchasing  power,  supplement- 
ed by  private  loans  to  government  (compulsory  if 
necessary,  and  at  the  compulsory  rate  of  2Vz%.) 
Presto — no  inflation! 

Looks  like  Mr.  Keynes  has  something  there.  But 
the  essential  mechanics  seem  vaguely  familiar. 

Canada's  own  C.  C.  F.  party  has  already  developed 
notions  about  taxing  away  surplus  purchasing 
power.  With  it  they  hope  to  tax  capitalistic  boogey- 
men  into  kingdom  come,  and  seize  upon  the  'means 
of  production'  with  a  view  to  operating  them  for  the 
benefit  of  the  people,  a  thing  which  no  political  rab- 
ble is  in  any  way  qualified  to  do.  If  it  is  proposed 
to  balance  the  government  loan  by  taxation,  without 
increase  of  government  debt,  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  point  out  that  the  results  will  be  more  disastrous 
to  more  people  than  any  revolutionary  could  wish.  So 
much  for  taxation. 

As  for  the  raising  of  private  loans,  the  democratic 
government  across  the  49th  has  spent  the  most  mon- 
ey in  the  shortest  time  on  record,  and  has  very  little 
in  the  way  of  monetary  inflation  to  show  for  it.  True, 
the  Keynesian  wizardry  is  not  in  evidence — over 
there  it  is  just  plain  old  credit  inflation — but  it  does 
work  nevertheless.  Technocracy  endorses  the  pro- 
posal to  expand  Canada's  credit  structure,  knowing 
full  well  that  this  will  bring  forth  a  new  and  greater 
Canadian  industrial  technology,  while  the  debt  will 
never  be  paid.  When  the  stock  market  broke  in 
1929,  the  U.  S.  Federal  debt  stood  at  about  16  billion 
dollars.  Now  it  stands  at  about  43  billion  dollars.  If 
we  embark  upon  the  Rooseveltian  procession  down 
the  middle  course,  let  us  remember  that  there  will  be 
no  disembarking  short  of  the  end. 

Bulletin  11450-1 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER.     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


PAGE    NINE 


jbifyebt'incj,   tlve    Afewd 


'North  Americans  "Golden"  Era' 

'Gold  will  emerge  from  this  disturbed  period  with 
added  prestige  as  the  international  medium  of  ex- 
change.' (U.S.  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  Henry  Mor- 
genthau,  before  the  U.  S.  Senate.) 

'National   Ham   and   Eggs'   takes   a  different   view. 
Says  that  publication: 

'The  U.S.  is  holding  the  only  solid  gold  "white 
elephant".  The  most  expensive  "white  elephant" 
in  history  will  belong  to  America  in  1940.  The 
nation  is  finding  out  there  is  such  a  thing  as  too 
much  gold  and  it  is  presenting  a  serious  problem. 
About  two-thirds  of  the  world's  monetary  gold  is 
now  in  the  U.S.A.  and  additional  amounts  are 
constantly  arriving.  If  the  gold  standard  should 
not  be  restored  in  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  its 
restoration  is  uncertain,  the  U.S.  would  find  itself 
with  a  metal  which  no  one  wanted.  The  world 
would  have  succeeded  in  unloading  upon  us  for 
value  the  gold  which  it  no  longer  desired.  To  re- 
fuse to  buy  gold  would  cause  a  drastic  decline  in 
the  value  of  the  metal  and  have  other  unfortunate 
repercussions.  Our  government  thus  has  a  bear  by 
the  tail.' 

The  Facts 

To  Technocrats,  both  the  above  views  are 
'economic'  mis-statements.  Morgenthau  is  attempting 
to  assuage  the  fears  of  those  who  oppose  the  flow  of 
gold  to  this  country.  The  Ham  and  Eggers  are  con- 
cerned with  their  own  contention  that  the  U.S.A. 
needs  a  new  monetary  system.  'Ham  and  Eggs'  states 
that  the  U.  S.  is  finding  there  is  such  a  thing  as  too 
much  gold.  The  opposite  is  the  case.  The  U.  S.  is  find- 
ing there  is  far  too  little  gold  and  the  chief  worry  now 
is  how  long  the  gold  will  last.  The  price  of  gold  was 
raised  at  a  time  when  a  tremendous  supply  of  goods 
was  threatening  the  stability  of  American  industry. 
The  price  was  raised  to  attract  gold  to  this  country, 
not  to  allow  an  unloading  of  unwanted  gold  upon  us, 
but  to  make  possible  an  unloading  of  unsaleable 
American  goods  upon  the  people  of  other  countries. 
With  the  higher  price,  more  goods  could  be  given  for 
a  unit  of  gold  than  formerly. 

The  gold,  as  such,  is  useless  to  us.  If  the  present 
American  stocks  were  turned  out  to  circulate,  the 
abundance  of  the  metal  would  reduce  its  price  to  zero 
level.  The  gold,  in  the  hands  of  foreigner's,  is  a  god- 
send to  American  politics  and  business.  The  difficulty 
is  that,  at  present  trends,  the  foreign  holdings  will  not 
last  long  enough. 

The  greater  portion  of  the  world's  gold  is  already 
here  and  we  are  still  'suffering'  from  surplus.  Even 
the  stupendous  gold  purchases  of  1939,  averaging 
about  $5,700.00  per  minute  for  the  year,  did  not 
serve  to  maintain  sufficient  scarcity  here  to  take  busi- 


ness off  direct  relief.  The  gold  flow  to  this  Continent 
has  proved  insufficient  to  balance  our  ability  to  pro- 
duce and  it  has  become  necessary  to  again  extend 
credit  to  foreign  countries  on  non-collectable  loans. 
Ex-President  Hoover  has  been  helping  to  popularize 
this  reversion  to  1914-1920  methods,  in  his  own  little 
way. 

Nice  Business 

It  has  been  nice  business  for  Government,  this 
subsidizing  of  foreign  purchases.  It  has  been  nice 
business  for  the  bankers  handling  the  transactions; 
nice  business  for  industries  which  sold  the  material, 
and  nice  business  for  the  union  leaders  who  claimed 
their  efforts  were  responsible  for  the  work  and  wages 
going  to  their  followers.  It  has  been  nice  business, 
but  the  hell  of  it  is,  it  can't  last.  America's  ability 
to  produce  is  growing  so  enormous  that  if  foreign 
markets  are  going  to  maintain  Scarcity  here,  foreign 
production  will  have  to  stop.  America  is  verging  so 
close  to  a  condition  of  Abundance  that  even  wars  and 
gifts  cannot  keep  up     to  our  supply. 

Soon  our  Scarcity  methods  will  have  to  be  abandon- 
ed, for  there  will  no  longer  be  any  Scarcity!  Without 
Scarcity  there  will  be  no  value,  no  price,  no  medium 
of  exchange;  there  will  be  no  Business,  no  Politics,  no 
Labor,  no  Chiseller,  no  Sucker — ah!  play  the  drum 
softly,  while  we  bury  the  Price  System. 

Let's  be  prepared  to  bury  the  Price  System  when 
the  need  arises,  but  in  the  meantime,  let's  prepare  to 
carry  on  production  and  distribution  when  the  Price 
System  is  buried!  Again  we  say:  Investigate  Tech- 
nocracy! 


Lumber  Industry  in  B.  C. 


Unless  lumber  soon  starts  to  move  out  of  B.  C.  the  dry- 
kilns  will  not  be  needed  this  summer.  Indications  are  that 
there  will  be  lots  of  time  for  air-drying. 


PAGE    TEN 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


•  m 


mm 


«n 


4r, 


m  *j  ■ 


The  situation  in  the  lumber  and  logging  industry 
of  British  Columbia  is  becoming  more  serious  each 
day.  The  market,  for  70  percent  of  the  usual  cut,  is 
closed  for  lack  of  shipping  facilities.  The  proposed 
remedy  of  rail  shipping  to  the  Atlantic  seaboard  of- 
fers little  hope  of  clearing  B.  C.  yards  of  cut  lumber. 
Although  many  lumber  yards  at  present  are  congest- 
ed not  more  than  'normal',  the  lumber  is  not  moving 
and  there  is  no  place  to  put  additional  stocks.  Many 
mills  have  curtailed  operation  and  the  effect  on  busi- 
ness in  some  sections  of  the  province  is  severe. 

In  New  Westminster  alone,  about  1000  men  have 
been  laid  off  to  date,  and  further  reductions  of  opera- 
tions are  expected.  Figuring  an  average  of  three  de- 
pendents per  worker,  about  one-fourth  of  New  West- 
minster's population  has  lost  its  purchasing  power,  a 
loss  to  business  of  about  $100,000  per  month.  The 
Fraser  Mills,  in  that  city,  is  reported  to  have  22  mil- 
lion feet  of  cut  lumber  on  hand. 

On  Vancouver  Island  much  the  same  conditions 
prevail.  There,  the  Youbou  mill  is  reported  to  be 
holding  over  20  million  feet  of  cut  lumber. 

It  is  reported  that  the  government     is     paying     at 


We  will  endeavor  to  have  some  data  on  the  logging 
industry  in  British  Columbia  for  the  next  issue. 


A  couple  of  men  and  lots  of  power  can  saw  into  planks  and 
boards  as  much  lumber  as  hundreds  of  men  could  produce 
with   hand   tools. 

least  some  of  the  mills  $1.00  per  month  storage  for 
each  1000  feet  of  cut  lumber  held.  If  the  government 
is  paying  at  that  rate  for  all  the  unexported  portion 
of  the  400  million  feet  ordered  for  Britain,  the  month- 
ly rental  coming  to  British  Columbia  would  be  in  the 
neighborhood  of  $400,000.00. 

The  reduction  of  mill  operations  is  causing  grave 
forebodings  in  the  logging  business.  Log  export  has 
dwindled  alarmingly  and  now  the  domestic  market 
threatens  to  fold  up.  Rumours  are  rife  that  the  large 
logging  operators  are  about  to  close  down,  and  cer- 
tainly, if  present  trends  continue,  they  will  be  forced 
to  close. 

Australia,  formerly  a  sizable  market  for  logs,  has 
been  almost  cut  off  by  the  tremendous  increase  in 
cargo  rates.  In  recent  months  the  cargo  rate  for  logs 
to  Australia  has  increased  from  $14.00  to  $54.00  per 
thousand  feet. 


Something  new  has  happened  in  North  America. 
Newspapers  and  business  leaders  see  the  symptoms 
and  are  alarmed.  In  recent  years  we  have  experienc- 
ed one  crisis  after  another  and  so  many  'emergency 
measures'  have  been  devised  that  now  all  is  'emergen- 

cy'. 

Here  in  B.  C,  we  are  suffering  from  lumber  crisis, 
logging  crisis,  onion  crisis,  egg  crisis,  wheat  crisis,  and 
we  are  getting  ready  for  an  expected  salmon  crisis. 
An  unusually  heavy  run  of  sockeye  salmon  is  pre- 
dicted and  our  salmon  market  is  already  dwindling. 


Dixie  and  Cotton 

What  about  the  South,  that  romantic  home  of  mag- 
nolia blossoms,   and  happy   workers  singing   'Dixie'? 

Following  are  some  of  the  salient  points  of  the  re- 
port of  the  National  Emergency  Council,  commis- 
sioned to  make  a  thorough  study  of  economic  con- 
ditions in  this  area: 

The  South's  cotton  economy  is  bankrupt;  much  of 
its  soil  is  exhausted.  The  average  annual  income  per 
capita  is  $314.  Often  workers  toil  for  wages  30  to  50 
per  cent  below  national  averages,  although  the  cost  of 
living  between  North  and  South  differs  less  than  5 
percent. 

Sharecroppers  and  tenants  number  53  percent  of 
all  Southern  farmers,  and  65  percent  of  all  cotton 
farmers.  Their  homes  are  hovels;  their  average  in- 
come is  $73.  Conservative  estimates  put  the  number 
of  ill-housed  families  at  4,000,000;  or  half  of  all  the 
families  in  the  South. 

The  South  spends  $26.  per  year  per  child  on  edu- 
cation; half  the  average  for  the  nation. 

From  an  article  by  Dr.  Paul  W.  Chapman  in  the 
'Fertilizer  Review,'  November-December  issue,  re  the 
cotton  industry,  we  cull  the  following  excerpts: 

'As  a  result  of  the  decline  in  markets  for  cotton  we 
have  both  land  and  people  in  the  South  that  have  lost 
their  former  jobs. 

'This  year  we  withheld  10  million  acres  from  cotton 
production — all  land  looking  for  a  new  job. 

'But  more  significant,  we  have  in  the  Southern 
States  21/z  million  farm  people  on  cotton-type  farms 
that  are  just  as  much  without  a  job — in  terms  of  our 
former  system  of  farming — as  if  they  had  been  work- 
ing for  a  factory  that  had  ceased  to  exist.  They  are 
the  persons  who  formerly  supplied  the  cotton  for  mar- 
kets that  no  longer  exist.' 

Years  ago,  when  Technocracy  predicted  these  con- 
ditions in  cold,  precise  and  unemotional  statements, 
there  was  much  booing  on  the  part  of  the  'big'  people 
of  this  Continent.  Business  men  and  economists, 
bankers  and  preachers,  orated  scornfully  about  such 
'scare  mongering'. 

Technocracy  is  still  predicting  correctly  and  still 
ignoring  ignorant  opinion. 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER.     B.     C     MAY — 1940 


PAGE    ELEVEN 


Trends  of  the  Day 

Business  Tactics  -  Newsprint 

Business  in  all  its  branches  is  being  forced  by  in- 
creasing taxation  and  shrinking  markets  to  effect  op- 
erating economies  in  every  possible  phase  of  activity. 
Typical  of  this  trend  is  the  following  news  item: 
'The  use  of  narrower  rolls  by  publisers  is  pro- 
bably equivalent  to  a  reduction  in  consumption  of 
8%  compared  with  the  roll-width  used  20  to  25 
years  ago.     A   striking  example   of  this  kind  is 
furnished  by  the  "Daily  News",  New  York.     By 
putting  the  date-line  at  the  side  instead  of  at  the 
top  of  the  page,  the  "Daily  News"  estimates  a  sav- 
ing in  consumption  of  over  3,000  tons  of  paper 
through  the  use  of  a  61  inch  instead  of  a  62  inch 
roll.' 

The  significance  of  this  economy  of  3000  tons  per 
year  by  only  one  concern  needs  no  explanation. 

Price  System      Security 

How  true  the  expression,  'the  government  is  the 
people',  when  applied  to  present  conditions  in  the 
USA! 

Speaking  at  Vancouver  in  1938,  Howard  Scott 
stated: 

'Thirty-seven  million  U.  S.  citizens  are  depend- 
ent upon  the  taxing  power  of  the  state  for  their 
livlihood.  Relief  is  going  to  increase  and  it's  go- 
ing to  be  funny.  Think  what  will  happen  when 
about  15,000,000  more  go  on  relief  in  the  United 
States.  In  a  couple  of  years  it  won't  be  safe  for  a 
citizen  of  the  U.  S.  or  Canada  who  is  not  on  relief 
to  go  out  on  the  street'. 

The  couple  of  years  have  passed.  Now  over  sixty 
millions  of  U.  S.  citizens  depend  wholly  or  in  part 
upon  the  taxing  power  of  the  state  for  their  bread 
and  butter.  Relief  has  increased,  but  only  Techno- 
crats can  see  the  grim  humor  of  it.  Security  has  so 
far  disappeared  from  our  lives,  that  judging  from  fair 
Vancouver's  current  crime  epidemic,  even  the  old  age 
pensioner  and  the  reliefer  are  unsafe  on  the  street. 
Some  rugged  individualist  might  snatch  his  relief 
cheque. 

Business   Tactis — Banks 

The  pathetically  frantic  attempts  to  remain  solvent 
under  the  poor  old  Price  System,  have  led  at  last  to 
Rochester,  New  York  banks  trying  to  enforce  a  hand- 
ling charge  on  food  stamps  tendered  by  reliefers!  It 
would  seem  that  even  such  rugged  individualism  is 
doomed  to  failure  in  these  enlightened  times,  for  the 
Surplus  Commodities  Corporation  threatened  to 
erase  the  whole  plan  if  this  tactic  in  the  banking 
racket  was  continued.  (Data  from  HJ  News-Letter, 
Dec.  .15,  1939.) 

Business  Tactics — Insurance 

The  Canada  Life  Insurance  Company  publishes  an 
advertisement  stating:  'Your  life  insurance  is  "money 
for  future  delivery".' 

'But  have  you  ever  though  of  just  HOW  it  will  be 
delivered?' 

'Why  not  find  out?' 


It  would  be  indeed  unfortunate  if  the  people  of  this 
Continent  really  would  start  to  find  out  how  they 
are  going  to  get  their  money  out  of  their  insurance 
policies!  With  the  interest  rate  dropping  progressive- 
ly— although  heavily  bolstered  by  Government  funds 
— the  chances  of  collection  a  few  years  from  now  are 
getting  not  only  slim,  but  positively  'skeletonic'. 

We  hear,  without  confirmation,  that  many  of  the 
Technocrats  throughout  the  Continent,  are  cashing  in 
on  their  policies  and  buying  Packard  cars!  (on  long 
terms) 

Technology — Railroads 

'Union  Pacific  R.  R.  coaling  station  at  Green  River, 
Wyoming,  designed  to  coal  several  engines  at  one 
time.  Coal,  discharged  into  track  hopper  feeding  the 
gravity  conveyor  loading  the  bunker,  can  be  unloaded 
at  the  rate  of  100  tons  per  hour.' 

Concerning  another  installation  for  loading  lake 
carriers,  the  Labor  Saver  says: 

'Shuttle  conveyor  on  turntable  carriage  trans-ships 
coal  at  the  rate  of  800  tons  per  hour.  The  electrically 
controlled  shuttle  conveyer  is  operated  from  an  en- 
closed cab  mounted  on  the  under  carriage,  from  which 
point  The  Operator  loads  and  trims  the  boats., 

Where,  oh  where  has  my  wheel-barrow  gone?  My 
shovel,  my  aching  back,  the  sweat  of  forgotten  toil? 
Next  time  we  hear  they'll  be  loading  locomotives  with 
a  switch-lever  in  one  hand  and  a  cup  of  tea  in  the 
other. 

Discoveries — Weaveless  Cloth 

A  new  cotton  cloth,  which  is  composed  of  unwoven 
fibres,  has  been  achieved  in  the  Fiber  Products  La- 
boratories, New  Brunswick,  N.  J.  Spinning  and 
warping,  with  subsequent  weaving,  are  eliminated,  for 
once  the  fibers  are  cleaned,  they  are  straightened  and 
fed  in  a  fine  web  to  a  belt,  where  a  spray  of  latex  or 
a  cellulose  derivative  combine  sticks  the  fibers  to- 
gether. Another  layer  of  fibers  can  be  super-imposed 
at  cross  angles  to  work  out  any  design  desired,  and 
any  width  can  be  manufactured. 

Shoe  uppers  can  be  made  in  this  way  by  using  a 
chemical  substitute  for  leather,  or  asphalt  will  hold 
the  fibers  together  for  a  thick,  cotton  bound  asphalt 
sheet.  Thick  strips  of  cotton  cloth  treated  with  the 
latex  give  the  appearance  of  felt,  but  is  much  stronger 
than  felt.  The  process  may  find  use  for  fibers  which 
can't  be  woven,   such  as  cocoanut  fibers.' 

(HJ  News-Letter) 

Farewell  to  more  spinners  and  weavers — and  their 
purchasing-power;  upon  the  demise  of  one  hand-craft 
after  another,  we  hear  the  whisper,  '.  .  .neither  do  they 
spin.' 

Discoveries — Lubrication 

Three  researchers,  J.  W.  Givens,  Otto  Beeck  and 
E.  C.  Williams  of  the  Shell  Development  Co.  reported 
to  the  American  Physical  Society  that  the  addition  of 
a  simple  chemical  to  lubricating  oil  can  reduce  fric- 
tional  wear  to  perhaps  one-fifth  of  its  usual  pace. 

The  chemicals,  particularly  compounds  of  phosphor- 
us and  arsenic,  combine  with  the  surface  of  the  metal 
to  form  a  sort  of  alloy  which  melts  at  a  relatively  low 
temperature.     Despite  the  high  polish     attained     in 


PAGE     TWELVE 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


*SL*        WMwBJ  ttj&  BSE 

§£ 

1 1 

58F 

>..T"- 

**«s  H   H 

bearing  surfaces,  microsopic  irregularities  remain;  un- 
der the  heat  of  friction  the  chemicals  tend  to  fill  in 
the  'valleys'  and  distribute  the  pressure  evenly  all 
over  the  bearing  surfaces. 

Addition  of  portions  of  triphenyl  arsine  or  triphenyl 
phosphine  to  simple,  inferior  oil  resulted  in  reducing 
rate  of  bearing  wear  to  about  1/12  and  1/7  respectively. 
Dr.  Beeck  stated  that  the  addition  of  such  chemicals 
to  commercial  lubricants  would  slow  frictional  dam- 
age to  possibly  one-fifth.   (New  York  Times) 

Discoveries — Nylon  Again 

'Newsweek'  Feb.  19th,  reports  that  Nylon  chemicals, 
pressed  into  goats'  leather,  produce  a  shiny  surface 
like  patent  leather,  though  far  more  durable.  Nylon- 
impregnated  cotton  cloth  becomes  stronger  and  wa- 
ter-proof; Nylon-coated  paper  may  be  formed  into  oil- 
proof  containers,  and  Nylon  spread  over  wire  mesh 
hardens  into  a  strong  'glass'  that  transmits  the  ultra- 
violet rays  which  ordinary  glass  shuts  out. 

As  Nylon  is  manufactured  from  cheap,  abundant 
resources,  by  the  most  up-to-date  and  labor-saving 
methods,  the  more  Nylon-treated  articles  that  are 
developed,  the  less  of  our  valuable  resources  will  be 
used,  and  the  less  man-hours  will  be  necessary  to  pro- 
duce the  same  quantity  of  finished  goods.  Good  old 
Nylon! 

Memories  of  1938-39 

The  'Scientific  American'  of  January,  1939  told  us 
of  a  new  building  block  that  was  discovered  by  treat- 
ing waste  acid  from  steel  production  which  was  for- 
merly destroyed;  it  was  named  Ferron. 

A  report  from  the  NIRB  committee  to  President 
Roosevelt  in  1939  recorded  that  in  1929  the  labor 
cost  to  produce  one  automobile  door  was  $4.00,  in 
1835,  it  was  15c!  A  welding  machine  had  been  pro- 
duced that  could  displace  15  men  each!  A  lock-mak- 
ing concern  had  purchased  a  buffing  machine  for 
polishing  locks  etc.,  and  it  needed  no  human  help  at 
all  except  to  start  and  stop  it! 

In  the  same  report,  referring  to  the  automobile  in- 
dustry, it  was  discovered  that  in  1930  it  took  250  men 
to  finish  100  motor  blocks  in  a  given  time,  whereas  in 
1939,  19  men  could  finish  250  in  the  same  time! 

Is  this  significant,  this  glimpse  into  the  dim  past  of 
a  year  ago?  Yes,  indeed,  for  as  the  developments  of 
1938-39  forced  those  of  1929  into  obsolecence,  so  will 
those  of  the  next  2  or  3  years  make  last  year  seem  like 
the  dark  ages! 


Field  Activities 

Symbolism 

The  Monad  symbolizes  man's  emergence  from  his 
age  long  toil  and  servitude  into  a  new  and  abundant 
life.  Ancient  as  Old  Cathay,  yet  modern  as  tomorrow, 
it  denotes  unity,  balance,  and  dynamic  growth.  By 
its  unobstructive  display — as  a  lapel  button,  on  maga- 
zines, paper,  envelopes,  cars  and  in  every  place  and 


on  every  occasion  where  the  activities  of  the  Organi- 
zation come  into  contact  with  the  Public,  it  has  be- 
come the  recognized  badge  of  Technocracy.  Even 
though  people  seeing  it  do  not  always  know  what 
Technocracy  stands  for,  it  is  doing  it  without  the 
noisy  ballyhoo  customary  in  Price  System  and  poli- 
tical advertisements. 

Grey  suits  and  Grey  Cars  are  doing  the  same  thing 
in  the  same  way.  Technocrats  know  that  these  sym- 
bols stand  for  the  greatest  dynamic  Organization  the 
world  has  ever  known,  and  which  is  preparing  to 
aid  the  greatest  social  change  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind. Bearing  this  in  mind  it  should  inculcate  in 
every  Technocrat  a  manner  of  conduct  and  speech 
in  keeping  with  our  symbol's  dynamic  purpose.  This 
requires  self  discipline. 


Mobile  Organization  Unit 

Pasedena,  February  27.  With  Director  Anderson  in  the 
chair,  Technocracy's  Mobile  Organization  Unit  was  intro- 
duced to  Southern  Californians  by  Herb.  Clark  at  the  well 
kept  headquarters  of  Pasedena's  Section  1.  The  hall  being 
filled,  a  P.  A.  system  was  used  for  listeners  outside.  The 
sign  up  was  17%  including  one  listener  from  the  street. 

El  Monte,  February  29.  Here  the  lecture  took  place  in 
the  Civic  Auditorium,  followed  by  another  17%  sign  up.  On 
March  1st.  a  lecture  at  Section  Headquarters  on  Western 
Ave.  was  well  attended.  Organizer  Les  Mull,  it  is  learned 
will  shortly  pull  up  his  Price  System  stakes  in  order  to  put 
full  time  for  Technocracy. 

Santa  Anna,  March  3.  A  comparatively  young  section  here 
organized  a  successful  meeting  at  College  Hall  on  Sunday 
afternoon,  followed  by  a  parade  of  grey  cars  with  police  es- 
cort. 

Van  Nuys,  March  4.  Organizer  S.  E.  Cameron  addressed 
a  meeting  of  the  ladies  of  Section  16. 

_  Los  Angeles.  At  this  point  sevei-al  open  dates  gave  time 
to  the  M.  0  U.  staff  to  visit  places  of  interest,  notably 
Southern  California's  famous  Planetarium,  and  the  news- 
paper plant  of  the  Los  Angeles  Times.  This  plant  is  ser- 
viced by  fifty-three  miles  of  telephone  wire  for  inter-com- 
munication, uses  one  million  three  hundred  thousand  watts 
for  lighting,  and  four  thousand  horsepower  for  press  op- 
eration etc.  This  visit  was  sponsored  by  the  local  Farads 
under  leadership  of  Charles  Swan.  The  staff  was  also 
privileged  to  visit  Walt  Disney's  studio  where  fourteen 
thousand  four  hundred  employees  make  'little  people'.  The 
studio  is  working  on  'Bambi'  for  release  in  1941.  'Cinderella' 
is  also  being  worked  on.  Incidentally  an  exceedingly  well- 
informed  Technocrat  is  the  creator  of  many  of  the  figures, 
including  the  famous  'Pinocchio'.  At  El  Monte,  on  March 
5,  Mrs.  Cameron  delivered  a  splendid  twenty  minute  talk 
to  members  of  the  Workers  Alliance  at  Union  High  School, 
followed  by  two   more  such  talks   on  March  6. 

Downey,  March  8  Technocracy  was  here  introduced  to  the 
Women's  Club  by  Herb  Clark  under  the  chairmanship  of 
Arch  Malin,  resulting  in  a  new  study  class  being  formed. 
On  the  same  evening  Mrs.  Cameron  again  addressed  mem- 
bers of  the  Workers  Alliance  as  a  result  of  which  a  mass 
meeting  was  arranged  for  her  on  the  following  Sunday  On 
March  9  Downey's  Area  Headquarters  Committee  was  ad- 
dressed by  Herb  Clark  and  Mrs.  Cameron. 

Pasedena,  March  10.  Three  hundred  people  heard  Herb 
Clark  deliver  his  best  speech  to  date  at  the  Elks  Auditorium. 
The  ensuing  sign  up  was  nearly  of  Section  strength.  In 
the  evening  Mrs.  Cameron  again  addressed  the  Workers  Al- 
liance, by  request. 

March  12.  Mr.  Clark  gave  a  half-hour  talk  to  the  Business- 
man's Club.  Later,  at  Glendale  Mr.  Clark  spoke  under  the 
sponsorship  of  11834-1  to  an  almost  full  house  and  289? 
non-member  sign  up.  This  was  followed  by  a  membership 
meeting  of  11834-16  addressed  by  Mrs.  Cameron. 


TECHNOCRACY     DIGEST.     VANCOUVER,     B.     C     MAY— 1940 


PAGE    THIRTEEN 


March  13.  Another  well  attended  meeting  was  sponsored  by 
the  Van  Nuys  Section,  followed  by  an  overflow  meeting  ad- 
dressed by  Mrs.  Cameron  at  Pasedena. 

March  14th  Hollywood  Studios  Carpenters  Hall  was  well 
filled  to  hear  an  address  by  Herb  Clark,  introduced  by  Mr. 
Fienberg.  In  the  evening  Mrs.  Cameron  addressed  members 
of  Section  1  and  friends. 

Fullerton,  March  15.  The  final  meeting  of  the  Southern 
California  tour  was  held  at  the  Ebell  club.  The  attendance 
here  was  one-third  non-member,  the  section  being  young. 

During  this  tour  to  date  the  Digest  notes  that  the  sign  up 
of  non-members  has  been  good  throughout,  the  highest 
being  28%  and  the  lowest  4%. 

Cyril  Large  Local  Activities 

A  belated  report  of  the  Cyril  Large  Fraser  Valley  Tour 
of  February,  under  the  directorship  of  Org.  Gordon  Merritt, 
12249-3,  indicates  that  the  after  effects  of  the  tour  have 
resulted  in  many  more  new  members  than  signed  up  at  the 
meetings. 

In  between  tours  Speaker  Large  has  spent  a  busy  Wo 
weeks  around  Vancouver,  as  the  following  report  will  show. 

North  Vancouver,  March  10.  Due  to  short  notice  and 
lack  of  advertising  this  meeting  at  Section  Headquarters 
was  small. 

West  Vancouver,  March  11.  A  more  energetic  campaign 
of  telephoning  by  the  active  members  of  North  Vancouver 
Section  5  brought  a  fairly  good  attendance  to  this  meeting 
as  a  result  of  which  a  highly  interested  study  group  is  al- 
ready underway.  This  event  miarks  Technocracy's  first 
foothold  in  West  Vancouver. 

Bellingham,  Wash.  March  13.  Mr.  Large  was  on  this  oc- 
casion guest  speaker  at  a  well  attended  Grange  meeting.  One 
member  of  the  audience  objected  to  the  scaring  of  people 
by  talking  of  the  dangers  incidental  to  a  possible  Continental 
industrial   shutdown. 

Kitsilano  High  School,  Vancouver,  B.  C,  March  15.  A 
highly  interested  audience  of  two  hundred  senior  students 
and  a  number  of  teachers  heard  the  speaker  on  Technoc- 
racy, followed,  after  school  hours,  by  a  discussion  which 
lasted  from  3.30  p.  m.  to  5  p.m.  This  meeting  resulted  in 
the  organization  of  a  Farad  group. 

Cyril,  in  his  many  appearances  before  school  classes,  has 
obtained  considerable  information  of  the  tactics  necessary 
in  such  lectures.  He  recommends  that  Technocracy  lectures 
to  school  pupils  be  very  carefully  handled,  and  that  the  free 
literature  be  such  that  not  even  one  parent  can  take  ex- 
ception. Cyril  uses  the  pamphlet  'Technocracy's  Field.'  We 
must  contact  these  youth  whenever  possible,  and,  knowing 
that  parents  and  school  authorities  are  often  activated  by 
prejudice,  we  must  use  an  approach  that  does  not  arouse 
prejudice. 

Powell  River.  On  March  17  the  lecturer  addressed  a  mem- 
bership meeting  followed  on  the  19th.  by  a  well  attended 
public  meeting,  including  some  of  the  leading  citizens. 
Chairman  Bert  Hill  drew  a  big  laugh  by  having  the  collection 
made  in  the  lid  of  a  new  garbage  can. 

Lang  Bay,  March  18.  As  a  result  of  a  meeting  organiz- 
ed by  Phil.  Wilgos  there  is  the  makings  of  a  study  class 
here. 

Nanaimo,  March  22,  23,  24.  Grey  clad  Technocrats  from  all 
over  Vancouver  Island,  and  from  the  mainland  as  far  East 
as  Alberta,  and  North  and  South  from  Powell  River  and 
Everett,  attended  the  Area  Conference.  An  impressive  wel- 
come was  given  the  visitors  by  a  reception  committee,  all  in 
grey,  at  the  landing  dock.  A  social  was  held  Sat.  evening 
from  which  all  Technocrats  who  were  equipped  with  grey 
suits  took  time  out  to  visit  a  public  dance  and  mingle  with 
the  crowd.  This  very  successful  Area  Conference  wound 
up  with  a  membership  meeting  in  Section  Headquarters 
Sunday  afternoon,  after  which  the  visitors  were  conducted 
up  the  gangway  of  their  boat  through  a  double  line  of 
Technocrats  in  grey.  This  display  caused  considerable  com- 
ment among  the  other  passengers,  even  the  ship's  captain 
paused  for  another  look.  Director  Booth  of  Section  1  ex- 
pressed great  pleasure  at  the  self-discipline  of  the  visiting 
Technocrats.  He  said  that  this  conference  has  undoubtedly 
increased    Nanaimo's    respect   for   the    Organization. 


Two  touring  speakers  left  Vancouver,  B.  C,  at  the  month- 
end,  both  to  speak  on  April  1st.  We  made  arrangements 
to  have  the  reports  of  the  first  meeting  of  each  tour  rushed 
to  Vancouver,  so  that  we  might  squeeze  them  into  the 
DIGEST  as  we  go  to  press.  If  these  two  reports  are  in- 
dicative of  the  results  to  be  obtained  on  these  tours,Tech- 
nocracy  will  experience  a  definite  surge  in  B.  C.  in  the  near 
future. 

Cyril  Large 

The  report  of  Cyril  Large,  on  his  Boston  Bar  lecture,  in- 
dicates keen  interest  in  that  region.  After  an  afternoon 
spent  distributing  contact  folders,  twice  as  many  people 
were  on  hand  as  had  been  expected.  Everyone  stayed 
through  the  lecture  and  the  question  and  organization 
periods,  ending  at  11.15  P.M.  George  Allin  acted  as  chair- 
man. 'Today  everyone  in  Boston  Bar  is  arguing  for  or  a- 
gainst  Technocracy.  Those  who  could  not  attend  the  meet- 
ing are  sorry  they  missed  it.  Two  Vancouver  Farads,  Allan 
Burman  and  Clarence  Falk,  who  are  gold  mining  at  Kanaka, 
spent  two  days  hiking  the  thirty  miles  to  Boston  Bar  in 
order  to  be  on  hand  to  help  with  the  meeting.'  Allan  and 
Clarence,  the  DIGEST  salutes  your  fine  spirit.  Of  such 
stuff  is  this   Organization  built! 

Paul  J.  Sykes 

The  report  of  Paul  Sykes,  on  his  Chilliwack  lecture,  is 
equally  encouraging.  The  audience  filled  the  hall  and  only 
three  left  after  the  question  period.  The  meeting  with 

Mr.  Moore  as  chairman,  laster  until  11:00  P.  M.  Several 
out-of-town  listeners  indicated  a  desire  to  learn  more  about 
Technocracy.  Possibly  their  desire  may  lead  to  the  setting 
up  of  study  classes  in  their  neighborhoods.  A  carload  of 

members  from  Abbotsford  were  on  hand  to  help  roll  Tech- 
nocracy in  the  Fraser  Valley. 

Cyril  Large  Continental  Tour 

B.C.  Itinenary 

The  previously  announced  Cariboo  Itinerary  has  been 
changed  to  the  B.  C.  Itinerary  of  the  Cyril  Large  Conti- 
nental Tour.  The  first  portion  of  this  itinerary  will  be 
over  before  the  Digest  is  off  the  press;  therefore  we  are 
publishing  the  latter  phase  only,  as  follows: 

Vanderhoof  April  22,  23,  24. 

McBride  April  27,  28,  29. 

AJberta    Itinerary 
Jasper   May     1      Red  Deer  ..  ..  May  15 


Edson    May  2 

Cadomin  May  3 

Edmonton  May  6 

Leduc  May  8 

Camrose    May  10 

Wetaskiwin    May  11 

Lacombe   May  13 


Banff  May  17 

Calgary  May  20 

High  River  May  21 

Nanton    May   23 

Lethbridge   May   27 

Taber  May  28 

Medicine  Hat  May29 


Saskatchewan  Itinerary 

Cyril  Large  will  enter  the  province  of  Saskatchewan  by 
way  of  Swift  Current.  The  entire  month  of  June  will  be 
spent  in  touring  that  province,  leaving  on  June  30th  by 
way  of  Estevan,  for  North  Dakota.  From  July  1st.  to  10th. 
will  be  spent  organizing  in  Minot,  N.  D.,  and  district. 
Manitoba  Itinerary 

Cyril  Large  will  tour  the  province  of  Manitoba  from  July 
11th.  to  the  31st.  Full  itinerary  of  this  portion  of  the 
tour  will  be  published  in  our  next  issue. 


Section  Reports 

— 7943-1, — Toronto,  Ont. — Now  has  two  publications  cir- 
culating, the  second  being  the  'Membership  Bulletin'.  Is- 
sue No.  1  consists  of  three  pages  and  is  devoted  to  reports 
of  Section  activity  and  items  of  interest  to  the  Organization 
in  general. 

8141  Area — The  Akron  Area  Expansion  Committee  filled 
a  list  of  nineteen  speaker  engagements  in  February,  includ- 


PAGE  FOURTEEN 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


■  I 


■  I  i      mm 

Ji  DH 


m 


'  >,' 


■ 


ing  Ambridge,  Rochester,  Pittsburg,  in  Penn.;  Columbus, 
Cuyahoga  Falls,  Dayton,  Akron,  Willoughby,  Canton,  Gar- 
rettsville,  Barberton,  and  Norwalk,  in  Ohio;  and  Parkers- 
burg,  in  W.  Va.  Speakers  Richards,  Bee,  Pattan,  Seitz,  Wil- 
liams, Carr,  Haynes,  Mathers,  Carlstrom,  Runk,  and 
Chisnell  were  occupied  in  placing  Technocracy  before  this 
section  of  the  industrial  East  from  Feb.  1st  till  Feb.  28th, 
the   last   day   accounting  for  four  meetings. 

•8439-1, — Dayton.  Ohio — Recently  organized,  has  establish- 
ed HQ  in  51  Davies  Bldg.,  in  that  city.  This  'young  un'  is 
wasting  no  time  and  has  already  set  up  an  Area  Expan- 
sion Committee  in  addition  to  the  usual  Section  activities. 

9749  Area — The  four  section  of  R.  D.  9749  joined  in  put- 
ting on  a  dance  in  the  Marlborough  Hotel  in  Winnipeg  on 
Valentine's   Day. 

9749-1 — Winnipeg,  Man. — Recently  sponsored  two  speak- 
ing tours,  one  by  E.  R.  Anderson  in  Northwest  Manitoba 
and  one  by  A.  W.  Atwater  in  Southern  Manitoba.  Nine- 
teen rural  points  were  covered  by  the  tours  and  it  is  ex- 
pected that  subsequent  tours  will  consolidate  and  continue 
this    endeavour. 

10553-1, — Prince  Albert,  Sask  — Is  desirous  to  exchange 
publications  with  other  Sections,  especially  points  in  Eastern 
Canada  and  the  U.  S.  Prince  Albert  is  the  home  of  'The 
Bulletin  from  10553-1'.  In  the  Feb.,  1940,  issue  Mistatim  is 
recorded  as  R.  D.  10352-2  and  Peesane  appears  as  R.  D. 
10352-3.  The  March,  1940,  issue  reports  Mistatim  and  Pee- 
sane units  of  less  than  Section  strength  in  R.  D.  10552. 
Your  reporter  listed  Mistatim  and  Peesane  as  new  Sections 
in  the  April  Section  Report.  Which  is  correct,  Prince  Al- 
bert? 

11451-1, — Calgary,  Alberta — Has  demonstrated  that  small 
informal  meetings  held  in  private  homes  are  proving  very 
effective  in  gaining  new  members;  Calgary's  New  Member- 
ship Committee  is  averaging  four  or  five  such  meetings  per 
month.  The  Monthly  General  Membership  Meeting  has 
been  adapted  to  a  Monthly  Section  Membership  Night.  In 
addition  to  the  formal  membership  meeting,  the  evening  will 
consist  of  dancing  and  cards,  and  possibly  a  programme  of 
entertainment.  As  a  special  feature,  the  'Technotone',  a 
Wurlitzer-type  electrical  transcription  reproduction  machine, 
designed  and  constructed  by  Farad  Art  Ainley,  will  supply 
music.  Speaker  Jack  Lebeau  visited  Blackie  and  High  River 
on  Feb.  15th  and  16th  and  conducted  very  successful  meet- 
ings, reporting  that  Blackie  has  set  up  a  full  board  of 
Governors  and  moved  into  its  first  SHQ.  In  Turner  Val- 
ley, another  visit  was  made  to  Royalties  by  Phil  Collier. 
In  spite  of  the  lure  of  dances  and  hockey  games,  a  large 
and  enthusiastic  crowd  turned  out.  The  South  End  of  the 
Valley  is  now  operating  under  its  own  charter.  The  Phil 
Collier  Tour  of  February  and  March  leaves  no  doubt  in  the 
minds  of  members  or  others  that  Technocracy's  paid  public 
meetings  have  no  difficulty  in  competing  with  free  political 
rallies.  The  complete  tour  story  will  be  told  in  No.  12  of 
the  'Foothills  Bulletin.'  Technocracy  is  making  the  news 
again  and  is  telling  its  own  story  in  compi'ehensive  ac- 
counts of  the  tour  appearing  in  and  through  the  courtesy 
of  the  Red  Deer  'Advocate'  and  the  Innisfail  'Province'.  The 
auditorium  stage  in  SHQ,  now  completed,  has  been  photo- 
graphed by  Farad  Ed  Tovell  and  pictures  are  available  to 
members  complete  with  a  pioture-story  of  Technocracy  in 
pocket-size  miniature  to  use  in  approaching  friends  and 
contacts.  Calgary,  please  send  samples  of  this  to  the  Digest. 
Our  attention  is  always  alive  to  new,  more  effective,  and 
more  attractive  means  of  attracting  the  North  American 
to  the  Technological  Army  of  the  New  America. 

11749-1,- Trail,  B.  C. — Has  been  active  to  the  extent  of 
not  having  time  to  report  activities.  The  Social  Committee 
has  expanded  its  activities  to  include  a  'Dramatic  So- 
ciety' which  is  working  feverishly  on  a  play  to  be  presented 
in  April.  The  Section  has  moved  to  bigger  and  better 
HQ  on  Bay  Ave.,  directly  below  the  former  abode  at  Room 
2,  973  Eldorado  St.,  Trail.  We  have  just  received  copy  of 
Trail's  new  'Beacon'.     Nice  bulletin,  11749-1. 

11936-1, — Fresno,  California — reports:  'constant  growth 
in  membership;  very  pleased  with  presentation  of  Herb 
Clark,  who  spoke  here  February  24.  Had  one  official  grey 
car  in  "Americanism  Parade".' 

11950-1,— Salmon  Arm,  B.  C— In  their  Monthly  Bulletin, 


Issue  No.  3.  invite  criticisms  on  their  journalistic  efforts. 
We  salute  Salmon  Arm  for  the  very  readable  form  of  the 
Monthly  Bulletin.  We  may  criticize  later.  Canoe  reports 
regular  meetings  with  100'/'  (!)  attendance  of  members  and 
many  visitors. 

12138-1, — Sacramento,  Calif. — Although  just  chartered, 
this  Section  has  already  sent  Org.  Friedman  and  a  group  of 
six  to  Chico,  where  they  held  a  meeting  on  March  6th. 

12237  Area — Hollister  is  fortunate  in  having  Dr. 
McNown,  who  is  planning  to  take  over  whole  towns  for 
Technocracy.  This  energetic  member  is  getting  results  in 
Freedom  and  Watsonville,  as  well  as  in  Hollister,  and  is 
responsible  for  Technocracy  articles  appearing  in  the  local 
papers.  In  Santa  Rosa,  road  signs  are  being  put  up.  Since 
the  Clark  and  McCaslin  lectures  this  group  has  grown  large 
enough  to  use  the  school  building  for  meetings. 

12237-1, — San  Francisco,  California — This  month  San 
Francisco  smacks  us  between  the  eyes  with  five  pages  of 
'Golden  Gate  Technocrat',  No  3,  full  of  live  news  items  of 
particular  interest.  As  usual,  Technocracy  moves  again  and 
R.  D.  12237-1  is  now  inhabiting  236  McAllister  St.  SHQ 
offices  will  be  on  the  ground  floor  and  the  move  will  be 
made  on  April  1st.  Quoting  from  the  'Golden  Gate  Tech- 
nocrat': 'In  San  Francisco  outdoor  advertising  has  taken  a 
slump.  Many  empty  billboards.  So  the  outdoor  advertis- 
ing companies  are  now  advertising  outdoor  advertising  on 
their  own  billboards.  This  sad  (  ? )  state  of  affairs  would 
fit  very  happily  into  Technocracy's  plans  for  billboard  ad- 
vertising if  Continental  in  scope.  No  doubt  'depression'  (or 
should  we  say  recession)  rates  are  in  effect.  In  literature 
sales  for  the  Section;  February,  1940,  exceeded  February, 
1939,  by  300%.  7,955  pieces  of  literature  were  distributed. 
'America  Must  Show  the  Way'  is  now  going  into  25,000 
homes  in  serial  form.  The  'New  Mission  News'  and  'Com- 
munity News'  are  reprinting  the  article  through  authori- 
zation from  CHQ.  The  authorized  circulation  of 
Technocratic  articles  through  this  medium  has  now  reached 
139,000  per  week.  Though  just  recently     formed,       the 

alert  Distribution  Committee  under  Chairman  Winston 
Brice  has  already  exercised  disciplined  action  on  3,000  San 
Franciscans.  On  a  recent  Sunday,  twenty  square  blocks 
were  thoroughly  covered  with  an  announcement  of  a  Tues- 
day night  meeting  on  the  reverse  side  of  Technocracy 
Briefs.  A  systematic  coverage  of  selected  districts  is  being 
formulated  and  will  be  executed  by  this  crew. 

12237-3,— Redwood  City,  Calif.— Located  at  826  Arguello 
St.,  is  symbolizing  in  no  mean  way  with  two  new  monad 
signs  at  the  City  Limits,  three  new  Technocracy  grey  suits 
and  a  Technocracy  grey  car.  This  isn't  bad  for  a  practically 
new    Section! 

12249-1, — New  Westminster,  B.  C. — 'Since  moving  into  the 
new  S.H.Q.  the  attendance  at  public  meetings  has  increased 
fully  100  per  cent.  Even  the  study  classes  have  increased  in 
size  about  50  per  cent.  It  will  be  necessary  to  start  a  class 
at  Ladner  in  April.  On  March  10,  Paul  R.  Storrs  of  Seattle, 
spoke  to  a  full  house  at  S.H.Q.  Since  Storrs'  lecture  the  in- 
flux of  new  members  has  been  almost  processional.' 

12349 — Area — On  Mar.  22,  23,  24,  a  very  successful  Area 
Conference  was  held  at  Nanaimo,  home  of  Sec.  2.  Delegates 
were  present  from  Alberta,  the  Fraser  Valley  and  Wash- 
ington. Under  the  capable  handling  of  the  officers  of  Sec. 
2,  the  Conference  rolled  smoothly  from  start  to  finish  and 
resulted  in  the  most  successful  meeting  yet  held  in  this  area. 

12349-2 — Nanaimo,  B.  C. — Has  moved  into  new  SHQ  in 
the- Herald  Building,  275  Skinner  St.,  Nanaimo,  B.  C.  The 
Publicity  Committee  under  Gov.  Thommasen  has  the  Island's 
first  official  Technocracy  Billboard  under  construction.  A 
fine  example  of  the  esprit-de-corps  of  the  organization  is 
illustrated  in  the  erection  of  this  sign.  Port  Alberni,  R.  D. 
12449-1,  has  been  planning  the  erection  of  a  billboai'd  for 
several  months  but  has  been  unable  to  find  a  suitable  site. 
Not  wishing  to  postpone  any  longer  they  decided  that  Tech- 
nocracy would  derive  more  benefit  from  the  sign  if  it  were 
erected  at  Nanaimo.  Have  you  noticed  this  Section's  i-e- 
quest  to  exchange  Section  periodicals  for  Nanaimo's  'The 
Bulletin' 

12449-2, — Courtenay,  B.  C. — Recently  moved  into  the 
new  SHQ  according  to  R  .D.  12349-2's  'Tbe  Bulletin'  but  no 
mention  was  made  of  the  address.     Where  is  it,  Courtenay? 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     MAY— 1940 


PAGE     FIFTEEN 


Technocracy's  Predictions 

After  thirteen  years  of  fact-finding  (1919-1932)  Technocracy  Inc.  informed  the  people 
of  North  America  that: 

(a)  North  America  has  the  resources,  the  machines,  the  methods,  and  the  trained 
personnel,  to  produce  an  abundance  of  goods  and  services  for  the  people  of  this  Conti- 
nent. 

(b)  Abundance  negates  value.  An  achieved  abundance  on  this  Continent  would 
make  value  and  price  impossible. 

(c)  The  increasing  mechanization  and  addition  of  extraneous  energy  to  the  produc- 
tive and  distributive  sequences  of  industry  would  make  it  progressively  more  difficult 
to  maintain  the  scarcity  necessary  for  the  operation  of  our  Price  System  method  of 
social  control. 

(d)  Attempts  to  restrict  the  potential  abundance  would  only  increase  the  instability 
of  government,  of  business,  and  of  finance.     Destitution  and  prostitution  would  grow 
in  ratio  to  the  restrictive  measures,  and  dejection  and  subjection  would  be  the  plight 
of  the  North  American  as  debt  and  taxation  increased. 

(e)  The  Price  System  method  of  social  control  is  age-old  and  could  operate  only  un- 
der conditions  of  scarcity.  Under  the  threat  of  Abundance  the  Price  System  would  be 
come  the  most  damnable  and  most  distressing  restrictive  device  that  could  be  laid  to 
the  ingenuity  of  man. 

In  the  ensuing  eight  years  the  fact-finding  and  predictions  of  Technocracy  Inc.  have 
continued.  Technocracy  is  the  social  application  of  the  methods  of  Science  and  is  not 
concerned  with  the  agreements  and  opinions  of  persons  or  parties.  Technocracy,  as 
Science,  is  concerned  only  with  the  agreement  of  a  series  of  verifiable  observations 
of  the  same  phenomena.  Following  are  some  of  the  most  recent  verifications  of  the  early 
predictions  of  Technocracy: 

'FORTUNE'    Magazine,    after    ten   years  of  fact  finding,  says: 

Almost  all  the  serious  problems  that  now  confront  the  U.  S  have  their  origin.  .  .  in 
the  achievements  of  the  U.  S.  They  are  not  the  problems  of  poverty,  but  the  prob- 
lems of  abundance.' 

In  'SCIENCE  FOR  THE  WORLD  OF  TOMORROW  Gerald     Wendt  says: 
'Our  present  economy  is  based  on  scarcity.     Since  our  present  economy  does  not  op- 
erate under  conditions  of  abundance  it  is  simple  to  conclude  that  we  must  either  re- 
vert to  scarcity  or  change  our  economics.' 

In  the  February  issue  of  'SURVEY  GRAPHIC  David  Cushman  Coyle  says: 
'Underlying  the  city  and  country  unemployment  and  poverty  are  the  same  causes, 
with   local  variations.     Technology   is   destroying  jobs  in  industry  and  there  is  plenty 
more  of  the  same  in  the  blue-print  stage.' 

In  the  February  issue  of  'SURVEY  GRAPHIC     Lewis  Mumford  says: 
'Economic  enterprise  cannot  go  forward,  driven  by  past  motives,  without  destroying 
civilization  through  war,  impoverishment  and  chaos.    Nor  can  our  productive  mechan- 
ism go  backward  without  destroying  itself.' 

Richard  B.  Fuller  of  'Dymaxion'  fame,  says,  developing  technology  has  made 
the  citizen  potentially  so  rich  that  'the  important  fact  is  not  that  an  old  era  has  passed 
but  that  a  new  era  has  been  born'. 

More  and  more  frequently  the  predictions  of  Technocracy  are  being  verified  by  events 
and  by  the  statements  of  Price  System  leaders  on  this  Continent.  Even  the  politician 
and  the  economist  are  warning  that  soon  a  change  will  be  necessary  in  our  method  of 
social  control. 

Technocracy  points  out  that  when  a  Price  System  is  no  longer  possible  on  this  Conti- 
nent a  non-Price  System  will  have  to  be  put  into  operation  immediately.  An  Abund- 
ance cannot  be  exchanged,  bartered,  sold,  or  borrowed.  An  Abundance  can  be  distri- 
buted only  without  value  or  Price. 

Technocracy  is  the  only  non-Price  System  and  is  preparing,  day  by  day,  to  maintain  the 
operation  of  the  productive  and  distributive  equipment  of  the  Continent,  at  the  time, 
now  imminent,  when  the  pressure  of  Abundance  will  have  completely  wrecked  the 
Price  System,  the  method  of  the  Past. 


I 


IGEST 


BLICATION     OF    R.  D.    12349 
VANCOUVER,     B.  C. 


No.  70 


TEN    CENTS 


July,  194D 


r'  I  ■  I 


HHhJH 

KnfBHKSi2w:Sn 


-  Social  Objectives  - 


Technocracy's  survey  of  the  economic  situation  in  North 
America  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  development 
a  process  of  progressive  social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instabilty  exceeds  the  limits  of  social 
tolerance,  and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be  installed  on  the 
Continent  a  social  mechanism  competent  to  meet  the  needs 
of  its  people. 

Technocracy  finds  further  that  the  day  when  social  opera- 
tions on  this  Continent  can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now  necessary  that  there  be 
applied  in  the  social  field  the  quantitative  methods  of 
physical  science. 

Technocracy,  therefore,  proposes  that  the  North  American 
Continent  be  operated  as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This  control  would  operate  the 
area  under  a  balanced-load  system  of  production  and 
distribution,  whereunder  there  would  be  distributed  purchas- 
ing- power  commensurate  with  the  resources  and  the  continu- 
ous full-load  operation  of  the  physical  equipment,  with  the 
guarantee  of  a  high  standard  of  living,  equality  of  income, 
and  economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of  working  hours,  to 
every  adult  inhabitant. 

Technocracy  is  not  a  political  party.  It  has  nothing  in 
common  with  communism,  fascism,  or  any  other  social 
philosophy.  It  is  the  'Technological  Army  of  the  New 
America,'  an  organization  with  a  social  objective  formulated, 
officered,  and  staffed  by  North  Americans  as  the  only 
solution  to  the  unique  crisis  facing  this  Continent. 

Technocracy  Inc.  may  take  political  action,  but  it  would 
only  do  so  when  the  organization  is  sufficiently  trained, 
disciplined,  and  widespread  to  permit  the  simultaneous  exe- 
cution in  all  parts  of  one  of  this  Continent's  principal 
national  entities.  If  Technocracy  Inc.  takes  political  action 
it  will  be  the  last  political  action,  as  such  action  would  be 
taken  solely  for  the  abolition  of  the  Price  System  and  its 
accompanying  political  adminstration  and  the  transition 
into  the  functional  mechanism  of  a  Technate. 

At  this  stage,  therefore,  the  objectives  of  Technocracy  Inc. 
are  the  education  of  the  people  of  North  America 
to  a  realization  of  the  conditions  behind  the  social 
crisis,  and  second,  the  organization  of  all  those  willing  to 
investigate  and  interest  themselves  into  an  informed, 
disciplined,  and  functionally  capable  body  whose  knowledge 
and  ability  can  be  called  upon  to  prevent  chaos  in  North 
America  at  the  time,  now  imminent,  when  the  Price  System 
can  no  longer  be  made  to  operate. 


The  social  trends  of  North  America  are  accele- 
rating tremendously.  As  the  emotionalizing  of 
the  population  becomes  more  intense  and  the 
Price  System  on  this  Continent  becomes  more 
unstable,  every  Technocrat  will  increase  his 
vigilance  against  all  sabotage  activities. 

In  organizing  this  Continent  to  prevent  a  com- 
plete collapse  of  social  operations,  Technocracy 
has  a  stupendous  task  ahead.  That  task  can  be 
made  more  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  by  a 
growth  of  social  dissention,  or  by  any  wide- 
spread interference  with  the  means  of  produc- 
tion and  distribution. 

This  is  our  Continent  and  we  must  guard  it 
against  all  disruptive  influences. 


TECHIIOCRRCY 

DIGES 


July,  1940 


Vancouver,  B.  C. 


No.  70 


.  .  .  STAFF  .  .  . 

W.  D.  ELLWYN,  Editor 

CHARLES   SAUNDERS,  Associate   Ed. 

S.  BUSKI,  Circulation  Manager 

K.  J.  NELSON,  Production  Manager 

R.  R.  N.  TAYLOR,  News  Research 

D.  HILDRED,  Section  Reporter 

.  .  .  THIS  ISSUE  .  .  . 

Technocracy    is    Organized  to    Prevent    Sabotage       3 

Control  By  Function — Without  Price 4 

America  Needs  No  Part  of  the  Price  System    6 

Digest-ing  the  News 7 

Field   Activities    13 

Section   Reports 15 

.  .  .  OFFICIAL  LITERATURE  .  .  . 

Pamphlets 

Introduction   to   Technocracy   25c 

Man-Hours   ond    Distribution    15 

Evolution  of  Statesmanship   15 

Science  vs.   Chaos  10c 

America  Must  Show  the  Way  10c 

Mystery  of  Money   10c 

The  Energy  Certificate  10c 

Can   You  Qualify?    10c 

Technocracy  in  Plain  Terms  5c 

Research  Bulletin  Weekly  5 

Periodicals 

Technocracy,  Official  Magazine,  155  East  44th  St.,  New 
York,  N.  Y.  Subscription  rates:  $1.50  for  12  issues,  $1.00 
for  8. 

The  Technocrat,  1007  S.  Grand  Ave.,  Los  Angeles.  15c  per 
copy,  $1.50  for  12  issues,  $1.00  for  8  issues. 

Northwest  Technocrat,  Box  1003,  Portland,  Oregon.  10c  per 

copy.  $1.00  for  12  issues. 
Eighty-One  Forty-One,  38  South  High  Street,  Akron,  Ohio. 

Ohio.  10c  per  copy.  $1.00  for  12  issues. 
Technocratic  America,  Fontana,  California.  5c  per  copy,  50c 

per  12  issues. 
Prairie  Technocrat,  342  Main  Street,     Winnipeg,     Man.     5c 

per  copy,  50c  for  12  issues. 
The  Desert  Salute,  Hinkley,  California.  Gratis. 


Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349, 
Technocracy  Inc.,  at  724  Seymour  St.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies 
are  10c.  and  yearly  subscriptions  $1.00;  bundles  of  ten  or  more  copies 
are  at  8c.  per  copy.  When  remitting  please  make  money  orders  payable 
to  Technocracy  Digest.  Technocracy  Digest  is  enteied  at  the  Post  Office 
Department  at  Ottawa,  as  second  class  matter.  Printed  In  Canada. 
Note :   All  of  the  items  listed  may  be  obtained  in  bundles  at  special  rates. 


' 


Technocracy  Is  Organized 
To  Prevent  Sabotage 


An  Editorial 


Any  threat  to  our  equipment,  any  attempt  to  create 
social  confusion,  is  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  Cana- 
dians. 


TECHNOCRACY'S  analysis  of  the  social  order  on 
the  North  American  Continent  has  brought  to 
its  members  a  clear  understanding  of  the  meaning 
of  citizenship.  This  social  analysis  'bears  down  hard' 
on  a  study  of  the  physical  means  whereby  the  people 
of  this  Continent  live.  Our  paramount  interest  has 
always  been  concerned  with  the  production  and  dis- 
tribution of  goods  and  services,  with  the  security  and 
well-being  of  people,  with  efficiency. 

It  is  imperative  that  the  physical  means  of  pro- 
duction continue  operating  without  impediment. 
Sabotage,  in  high  places  or  low,  is  treason  to  the  peo- 
ple of  this  country  and  this  Continent. 

The  implications  of  this  position  form  the  core  of 
Technocracy's  specifications  of  citizenship. 

Today,  throughout  Canada,  a  strong  feeling  of  in- 
dignation, a  roused  intolerance  is  evident  against  all 
forms  of  sabotage  and  what  is  termed  'fifth  column' 
activity.  The  training  of  every  Technocrat  automati- 
cally places  him  in  sympathy  with  this  feeling  and 
puts  him  on  the  defensive  against  any  threat  to  the 
security  of  Canada. 

Our  educational  and  organizational  program  is 
well  known.  It  is  also  known  to  be  in  complete  accord 
with  the  statutory  limitations  and  legal  requirements 
of  the  Dominion  of  Canada.  Therefore  Technocracy 
Digest  offers  its  assistance  to  the  authorities  of  the 
Dominion  of  Canada  and  reiterates  that  all  Canadian 
Technocrats  stand  prepared  to  assist  all  law  enforce- 
ment bodies  in  thwarting  any  attempt,  either  from 
within  or  without,  to  destroy,  disrupt,  or  sabotage 
the  physical  equipment  and  natural  resources  and  the 
orderly  operation  of  all  functions  providing  for  the 
welfare  of  Canadians. 

Technocracy  and  Technocrats  of  Canada  lack  the 
facilities  to  be  as  articulate  in  behalf  of  the  safety  of 
Canada  as  they  would  desire,  but  Technocrats  can- 
not be  charged  with  inconsistency  in  placing  the  wel- 
fare of  Canada  and  Canadians  foremost. 

What  is  a  Canadian  Technocrat?  He  or  she  is  first 
and  foremost  a  citizen  of  Canada.  Each  Technocrat 
has  undertaken  to  adopt  the  scientific  approach  to 
social  problems.  The  use  of  data  and  information 
not  susceptible  of  verification  is  non-Technocratic. 
In  this  approach  there  is  no  room  for  emotional  pre- 
judices or  viewpoints.  Concerned  only  with  the  facts, 
Technocrats  have  found  that  the  dangers  threaten- 
ing North  America  are  greater  than  those  threaten- 
ing any  other  Continental  area.  Other  civilizations 
are  threatened  with  and     experiencing     military     in- 


vasion. Our  civilization  faces  a  collapse  of  social  op- 
erations. No  comparable  area  on  the  surface  of  the 
globe  presents  such  a  complicated,  precarious  inter- 
nal situation  as  does  this  North  American  Continent. 
The  march  of  events  abroad,  the  spreading  force  of 
armed  might  complicates  this  situation  even  more. 
Technocrats  must  be  ever  more  on  their  guard. 
Technocracy,  pledged  to  the  security  of  America 
must  become  ever  stronger! 

In  other  lands  a  few  hundred  thousand  men  may 
capture  avenues  of  distribution,  enforcing  capitula- 
tion of  the  populace.  Here,  a  fraction  of  that  number 
of  men  could  possibly  disrupt  the  entire  Continental 
operation  of  production  and  distribution.  So  inter- 
locked and  interdependent  are  all  phases  of  our  in- 
dustrial organization  that  any  widespread  interfer- 
ence with  power  or  transportation  on  this  Continent 
could  force  an  early  capitulation  of  our  populace — 
but  here  we  would  capitulate  to  chaos  and  worse! 

Here  on  this  Continent  there  is  no  independent 
part.  On  this  Continental  area  live  some  170,000,000 
people  whose  very  existence  is  made  possible,  first, 
by  the  stupendous  amount  of  equipment  at  their  dis- 
posal, and  second,  by  a  degree  of  social  unity  and 
coherence.  Any  threat  to  that  equipment  is  a  threat 
to  the  population.  Any  attempt  to  create  social  mis- 
trust, or  confusion  and  division  along  any  lines  what- 
soever is  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  Canadians. 

More  than  any  other  group  Technocracy  under- 
stands this,  and  every  member  of  this  Organization 
knows  that  the  protection  and  operation  of  this  coun- 
try is  his  first  obligation  as  a  citizen;  that  involves 
the  protection  of  the  physical  equipment  and  the  pre- 
servation of  social  order.  Every  functioning  member 
is  in  training  so  that  the  operation  of  the  physical 
equipment  will  be  assured,  even  though,  eventually, 
the  present  political-financial  control  will  find  itself 
unable  to  maintain  operations. 

These  facts  indicate  that  Technocracy  Inc.  is  the 
most  patriotic  organization  in  Canada.  With  no  axe 
to  grind,  no  political  'gravy'  to  seek,  no  business  in- 
terests to  serve,  and  no  special  privilege  aspirations, 
Technocracy  Inc.  is  free  to  organize  a  defence  against 
destruction  and  destitution  on  this  Continent. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  European  war  thousands 
of  Technocrats  throughout  Canada,  at  their  own  ex- 
pense, sent  telegrams  to  the  Jt^rime  Miniser  of  Canada 
offering  their  services  in  the  case  of  any  foreign  at- 
tack upon  us.  It  is  not  known  if  other  organizations, 
now  loudly  'patriotic,'  took  a  like  action,  nor  is  it  any 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER.     B.     C.     JULY— 1940 


PAfiK     THREH 


concern  of  Technocracy's  —  so  long  as  the  means 
whereby  we  Canadians  live  remain  unimpeded 
through  actions  of  emotional  'jitterbugs.' 

With  the  development  of  increasing  diligence  on  the 
part  of  the  authorities,  plus  evidences  of  hysteria 
among  certain  groups,  there  will  arise  an  increasing 
number  of  investigations.  For  eight  years  Technoc- 
racy has  consistently  repeated  one  request.  That  re- 
quest has  been,  and  is,  that  every  intelligent  citizen 
of  this  Continent  investigate  Technocracy.  The  facts 
are  all  in  our  favor  and  we  welcome  investigation  by 
any  one.  The  facts  are  in  our  favor  because  Technoc- 
racy is  in  favor  of  the  facts! 

Members  of  Technocracy  Inc.  must,  however,  take 
every  precaution  against  the  possibility  of  being 
classed  as  members  of  a  political  organization.  To  a 
Technocrat  the  communist  smells  as  bad  as  the  fascist, 
and  the  nazi  is  equal  to  either.  That  any  person 
should  strive  or  even  hope  to  set  up  any  of  those 
political  philosophies  on  this  Continent  is  sufficient 
evidence  that  that  person  is  unable  to  comprehend 
the  significance  of  the  facts  and  is  therefore  exceed- 
ingly undesirable  in  this  Organization.  In  addition,  an 
attitude  on  the  part  of  any  member  that  even  implies 
political  bias  cannot  be  tolerated  in  this  Organization. 


As  present  social  trends  on  this  Continent  continue, 
all  Price  System  organizations  and  groups  will  become 
more  unstable,  more  unreliable.  This  one  Organization 
must  remain  and  must  gain  in  stability  and  respect 
as  the  Price  System  approaches  its  end.  When  the 
Price  System  on  this  Continent  has  reached  the  end 
of  its  road,  there  will  be  only  one  Organization  which 
can  show  Canadians  and  North  Americans  where 
they  are  going  and  how  they  are  to  get  there;  only 
one  Organization  in  which  the  populace  can  have 
any  confidence.  That  Organization  will  be  the  one 
which  stands  for  the  adequate  defense  of  Canada  and 
the  Continent,  and  which  can  present  the  blueprints 
of  a  new  social  order. 

To  further  enhance  the  usefulness  of  Technocracy 
Inc.  in  the  present  crisis,  General  Regulations  have 
been  issued  requiring  that  all  able-bodied  Techno- 
crats join  and  assist  the  duly  authorized  local  authori- 
ties in  all  Home  Defence  activities. 

We  have  a  stupendous  job  to  do  and  not  much 
time  in  which  to  do  it. 

Every  Technocrat  will  consider  it  a  privilege  to  be 
called  to  any  duty  which  will  safeguard  the  lives  and 
physical  wealth  of  his  country  from  invasion — from 
within  or  without. 


Control  By  Function 
Without  Price 


By  Cyril  Large,  12349-4 


Capitalizing  Calamity  is  the  Price  System  road  to  success. 
Under  a  Technological  Control,  a  success  to  one  would  be 
a  success  to  all. 


T1  VERY  person  begins  individual  growth  and  de- 
^^  velopment  from  one  germ  cell.  In  two  hundred 
and  eighty  days  this  fertilized  ovum  increases  in 
volume  about  one  billion  times;  by  maturity,  the  hu- 
man body  consists  of  possibly  several  thousand  mill- 
ion cells. 

Life  is  the  continued  functioning  of  that  body 
made  possible  only  by  the  ef- 
ficient correlation  of  all  its 
many  varied  systems.  Each 
specialized  cell  is  comparable 
to  a  specialized  citizen  in  a 
Technate  and  our  body  sys- 
tems are  comparable  to  the 
functional  system  necessary  in 
maintaining  the  efficient  op- 
eration of  our  high-speed  pro- 
ducing end  servicing  equip- 
ment on  this  North  American  Has  Inherent  Functional 
Continent.  Control —  without  Price. 

First,    we   shall   investigate   our   muscular   system: 
We  find  it  is  composed  of  millions  of  specialized  cell 


engines.  Each  cell  receives  its  supply  of  energy  from 
the  blood  stream  and  converts  it  into  work.  Through 
the  many  varied  combinations  of  these  muscular  cells 
we  are  able  to  move  and  operate  the  human  body 
throughout  our  span  of  life.  These  muscle-machines 
correspond  with  the  scien- 
tific machinery  needed  in 
operating  North  America  as 
a  Technate. 

Second,  let  us  examine 
our  glandular  system.  Here 
we  find  that  the  endocrine 
glands  speed  up  or  slow 
down  various  functions  of 
our  body.  With  these  glands 
and  the  aid  of  our  five 
sense  organs,  the  body  can 
maintain  dynamic  equilib- 
rium. In  a  similar  man- 
ner, citizens  operating  a  Technate  with  the  informa- 
tion provided  by  Technocracy's  'Energy  Certificate', 
will  be  able  to  maintain  a  balanced-load  operation  by 


Must  soon  adopt  a 
Functional  Control — 
without    Price. 


PAGE    FOUR 


TECHNOCRAT"     DIGEST.     VANCOUVER.     B.     C.     JULY— 1940 


efficiently  regulating  production  and  distribution  of 
goods  and  services  in  accordance  to  the  demands  of 
all  citizens. 

Now,  consider  our  intricate  nervous  system  (scien- 
tifically known  as  the  most  complex  system  in  the 
universe)  receiving  and  transmitting  messages  from 
the  outside  or  inside  of  the  body.  The  nerve  fibres  can 
be  compared  to  the  wires  of  North  America's  com- 
munication system.  Each  little  sensory  organ  by  which 
we  feel  is  connected  with  its  own  nerve-fibre  similar 
to  each  house  phone,  provided  with  a  single  telephone 
line.  Just  as  the  automatic  telephone  exchanges  on 
this  Continent  connect  separate  phones,  so  do  the 
brain  and  spinal  cord  connect  separate  sense  organs. 

The  brain  is  directly  comparable  with  Technoc- 
racy's proposed  'Continental  Control'.  The  brain 
is  the  central  point  where  are  registered  all  facts 
necessary  to  keep  the  body  in  dynamic  equilibrium. 
Similarily  Continental  action  will  result  from  factual 
decisions  effected  by  the  automatic  operation  of  the 
Continental  Control  as  it  receives  its  continuous  re- 
cording of  all  production  and  distribution  transac- 
tions. 

The  digestive  system  (which  is  a  complex  analyti- 
cal chemical  laboratory)  processes  all  food,  as  we  eat 
it,  into  an  energy  form  which  the  millions  of  body 
cells  can  use,  and  places  the  converted  food  in  the 
blood  stream  for  distribution  throughout  the  body.  We 
get  more  energy  per  fuel  unit  from  our  human  inter- 
nal combustion  engine,  than  from  any  man-made  ma- 
chine; even  though  75  percent  of  this  energy  is  used 
to  maintain  the  body.  Similarily,  America's  many 
factories  process  natural  resources  and  are  capable 
of  placing  an  abundance  of  goods  in  our  transporta- 
tion system  for  distribution  throughout  the  Continent. 

The  circulatory  system  is  composed  largely  of  ar- 
teries and  veins.  The  arteries  efficiently  transport 
food  energy  in  adequate  proportions  to  every  one  of 
the  millions  of  body  cells  on  a  twenty-four  hour  ba- 
sis, high-load  factor  operation.  We  do  not  find  indi- 
vidual cells  arguing  that  their  function  is  of  greater 
importance  than  another,  so  the  other  cell  should  not 
be  permitted  to  receive  so  much  energy.  Instead, 
they  are  not  interested  in  what  the  other  cells  use; 
but  all  receive  as  much  energy  as  they  can  consume. 
Similarily,  North  America's  distributive  system  could 
transport  goods  abundantly  to  each  of  our  170  mil- 
lion citizens  if  it  were  not  for  Price-System  interfer- 
ence. 

The  veins  also  provide  transportation  facilities;  but 
this  time  to  remove  the  waste  matter  from  each  cell 
engine,  and  carry  it  to  the  kidneys  and  lungs  for  eli- 
mination. So  do  all  cities  and  towns  operate  sewer- 
age systems,  where  refuse  must  be  transported  from 
residential  areas  to  central  incinerators. 

The  body  is  built  up  of  cells  which  are  woven  into 
tissues,  and  then  built  up  into  larger  organs;  each 
possessing  a  certain  unity  and  performing  a  definite 
function.  These  specialized  cells  receive  no  wages; 
nor  do  they  stop  to  argue,  or  go  on  strike.  Instead 
they  keep  'their  noses  out  of  the  other  fellow's  activ- 
ity.' What  an  important  lesson  this  is  to  America's 


citizens! 

Knowing  what  would  happen  to  the  body  should 
our  heart  shut  down  but  a  few  minutes,  we  can 
easily  realize  a  Continental  industrial  collapse,  should 
North  America's  power  plants  ever  close  down  but 
a  few  hours.  The  ensuing  chaos  and  mob  hysteria 
would  be  so  drastic  that  few  if  any  of  our  present 
population  would  live  to  see  the  Continental  ma- 
chinery go  back  into  operation.  Continental  'rigor 
mortis'  would  set  in  very  rapidly. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  Technocracy  Inc.  is  warn- 
ing North  Americans  of  the  drastic  results  which  may 
occur  if  inefficient  political  and  Price-System  con- 
trols in  this  day  of  high-speed  technological  produc- 
tion are  permitted  to  continue  maintaining  scarcity 
by  enforced  destruction  and  waste. 

Investigation  shows  that  the  human  body  function- 
ed as  a  Technate  long  before  engineers  started  de- 
signing Technocracy.  It  is  time  for  America  to  apply 
science  to  our  social  order,  or  shall  we  say — apply  na- 
ture's physical  laws  to  our  methods  of  distribution. 

Just  as  the  new  born  child  instantaneously  adapts 
itself  to  the  new  environment  by  breathing  through 
its  nose  instead  of  the  umbilical  cord;  so  must  Amer- 
ica adapt  itself  to  the  new  environment  of  abundance, 
by  immediately  replacing  the  out-worn  scarcity  Price- 
System  control,  with  a  modern  scientific  control  de- 
signed to  distribute  an  abundance. 

If  you  do  not  already  understand  the  FACTS;  now 
is  the  time  to  investigate,  and  prepare. 


Wanted  -  A  Solution 

The  hearings  of  the  T.N.E.C  Monopoly  Committee 
have  been  one  long  futile  opinion-fest.  Relays  of  em- 
ployers and  union  officials  have  alternated  in  the 
childish  game  of  It  Does — It  Doesn't,  It  Has — It 
Hasn't. 

Without  taking  into  consideration  even  one  basic 
factor,  hearings  are  held  to  get  facts  out  of  opinions! 
Such  hearings  are  termed  investigations  by  the  poli- 
ticians. Howard  Scott  gave  a  more  accurate  descrip- 
tion some  years  ago  when  he  spoke  of  the  'parade  of 
the  dumb,  the  halt,  the  lame,  and  the  blind.' 

Business  Week,  May  4,  in  summing  up  the  result  of 
the  'Monopoly'  hearings,  states  chat  almost  everyone 
agreed  that  there  actually  is  an  unemployment  pro- 
blem, and  no  witness  was  ready  with  a  remedy.  Ac- 
cording to  Business  Week,  the  net  result  of  the 
hearings  was  simply:  'That  our  social  adjustments 
have  not  kept  pace  with  our  technological  progress'. 
That  is  what  Technocracy  has  been  declaring  for 
years,  yet  the  basic  postulate  of  these  political  hear- 
ings is  always  that  there  must  be  no  fundamental 
adjustment. 

Politically,  the  hearing  was  a  huge  success.  The 
way  is  already  laid  for  a  new  hearing  which  could 
be  titled:  'Wanted— A  Solution!' 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     JULY— 1940 


PAGE     FIVE 


America  Needs  No  Part 
Of  the  Price  System 


By  Joshua  Haldeman,  10450-1 


An  observation  of  our  social  trends  indicates  breakers  and 
a  smashup  ahead.     Only  Technocracy  is  preparing. 


NO  other  Country  has  anything  that  the  North 
American  people  either  want  or  require.  Here 
on  this  Continent  we  have  everthing  that  is  needed 
to  provide  us  with  certainty  and  security. 

Here  on  this  Continent  are  the  resources,  the 
equipment  and  the  trained  personnel  to  supply  all  the 
requirements  of  the  people,  good  food,  good  clothing, 
good  homes.  Here  on  this  Continent  we  could  have 
free  medical  service,  free  hospital  care,  most  disease 
eliminated.  On  this  Continent  we  could  have  free  edu- 
cation, a  practical  training  available  to  everyone. 
Here  we  could  have  Religious  freedom  without  price, 
and  freedom  of  individual  initiative  without  cutting 
our  neighbor's  throat.  We  could  have  the  highest 
civilization  ever  dreamed  of  by  man;  here  where 
nature  has  bestowed  her  wealth  beyond  all  com- 
parison with  any  other  area  on  earth. 

Here  on  this  Continent  we  produce  92  per  cent  of 
the  world's  natural  gas,  60  per  cent  of  the  crude  oil 
with  tremendous  reserves  in  tar  sands.  We  have  69 
per  cent  of  the  known  coal  reserves  of  the  world.  We 
produce  50  per  cent  of  the  lead,  copper,  zinc,  asbestos, 
corn  and  cotton  of  the  world.  We  produce  88  per  cent 
of  the  nickel  and  82  per  cent  of  the  world's  sulphur, 
43  per  cent  of  the  chemicals,  90  per  cent  of  the  movies 
and  we  drive  81  per  cent  of  the  world's  motor  cars, 
and  use  53  per  cent  of  the  world's  telephones.  We 
produce  2/3  of  the  world's  silver  and  have  70  per  cent 
of  the  world's  gold  buried  in  our  vaults;  gold  which  is 
of  no  practical  use  except  for  ornamental  purposes. 

Our  171  million  people  constitute  only  8  per  cent 
of  the  world's  population.  Yet  we  have  this  tremend- 
ous supply  of  real  wealth  all  about  us  on  the  18  per 
cent  of  the  land  area  of  the  world  which  we  occupy. 
The  lion's  share  of  the  world's  wealth  is  ours,  we 
don't  need  any  part  of  the  smaller  share  available  to 
the  other  92  per  cent  of  the  world's  population. 

Here  on  this  Continent  with  a  Technological  Con- 
trol we  could  be  safe  from  any  foreign  invasion.  The 
major  share  of  the  world's  natural  resources  neces- 
sary to  defend  ourselves  are  here.  We  have  over  50 
per  cent  of  the  trained  technicians  of  the  world  to 
operate  extensive  defence  units  on  our  behalf.  We 
are  also  fortunate  in  having  the  natural  protection 
of  large  expanses  of  water  surrounding  the  Continent. 
Here,  with  a  Technological  Control  in  this  Techno- 
logical Age,  the  North  American  people  could  with- 
stand the  attack  of  the  rest  of  the  world  combined, 
imagine  the  rest  of  the  world  getting  together  on  that 

PAGE    SIX 


proposition  or  any  proposition. 

Here  on  this  Continent  we  don't  need  malnutrition 
and  disease;  we  don't  need  taxes,  tariffs,  contractual 
obligations,  litigations,  legislations,  federations,  acts, 
constitutions,  property  rights,  money,  debts  or  de- 
bentures; we  don't  need  banks,  bandits,  or  bastards. 
It  need  not  be  necessary  any  more  to  be  a  wage  slave 
or  have  to  chisel  our  fellow  man  for  a  living.  We 
don't  need  fear,  insecurity,  uncertainty  and  want; 
we  don't  need  poverty,  politics  or  polygamy;  we  don't 
need  churchianity  displacing  Christianity;  we  don't 
need  crime,  corruption  and  social  calamities  for  the 
benefit  of  business;  we  don't  need  charity,  philan- 
throphy,  Community  Chests,  Drives,  Aids,  Tag  Days, 
campaigns  and  relief.  In  other  words  we  don't  need 
the  Price  System  of  which  all  these  are  inherent 
parts;  the  application  of  Science  to  the  Social  Order 
would  automatically  free  us  from  these  nauseating 
encumbrances. 

Let  us  wake  up  to  the  physical  possibilities  of  a 
greater  living.  Let  us  wake  up  to  the  physical  cer- 
tainties that  exist  here  for  us.  Howard  Scott,  Di- 
rector-in-Chief  of  Technocracy  Inc.,  points  out: 

'Only  here  can  science  develop  a  design  for  living  that 
will  be  the  glory  of  the  ages — a  design  that  will  bring  forth 
the  culture  of  function — a  culture  that  will  transcend  all  the 
cultures  of  history. 

'Here  for  the  first  time  social  ills  of  mankind  will  dis- 
appear in  the  solution  of  Continental  operation.  Only  here 
can  Americans  construct  a  nation  so  that  there  shall  be 
neither  rich  nor  poor,  but  in  which  all  will  be  wealthy.  Here 
in  this  New  America,  the  technological  application  of  phy- 
sical science  on  a  Continental  scale  will  bring  forth  such 
an  abundance  that  the  poverty  of  all  scarcity  economies 
will  be  looked  back  upon  as  the  dark  ages  of  man's  social 
history. 

'Here  we  can  create  the  abundance  for  that  new  design 
of  living — a  design  that  will  not  permit  any  American  to 
obtain  his  livelihood  from  the  ills  of  any  other  American. 
Here  can  be  created  the  culture  of  function — a  culture 
where  debt,  crime,  price,  and  economic  values  have  no  place. 

'It  is  possible  to  build  this  new  order  of  mankind,  this 
New  America,  here  and  now.  The  citizens  of  this  Continent 
do  not  have  to  wait  for  any  millenium.  They  can  create 
their  tomorrow,  today.  This  Continental  domain  has  the  re- 
sources, the  climate,  the  soil,  the  men,  and  the  machines  in 
a  sufficient,  generous  supply  to  construct  and  operate  the 
mechanism  of  a  New  America  independent  of  the  rest  of 
the  world.' 

An  investigation  into  the  physical  facts  reveals  the 

TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     JULY— 1940 


tremendous  possibilities  and  opportunities  available 
to  the  North  American  people.  An  observation  of 
social  trends  reveals  breakers  and  a  smashup  ahead. 
Technocracy  Inc.  is  preparing  for  a  New  Social 
Order  that  is  to  come.  If  you  are  a  Technocrat,  are 


you  doing  all  that  you  can  to  extend  the  Organization 
and  discipline  yourself  to  meet  its  objectives?  If  you 
are  not  a  Technocrat,  yet,  are  you  assuming  your 
share  of  the  responsibility  for  your  own  future  and 
that  of  the  Country  which  you  inhabit? 


^iCf&U-Uuf   tlte   J\leupi 


Our   Crazy    Economic   System 

If  you  ask  why  we  have  had  from  9,000,000  to  13,000,- 
000  unemployed  workers  in  the  United  States  in  most  years 
between  1933  and  1940,  the  answer  would  be  that  the  great 
majority  of  the  American  people  were  too  poor  to  buy  the 
goods  and  services  from  industry  which  the  workers  could 
produce  if  all  were  employed.  Then,  naturally,  you  ask  what 
is  the  cause  of  this  poverty  which  stagnates  American  in- 
dustry and  robs  one-fourth  of  our  industrial  wage  earners 
of  all  means  of  self-support.  The  answer  is  the  majority 
of  American  wage  earners  and  farmers  are  not  employed 
regularly  enough  and  when  employed  do  not  receive  suffici- 
ent compensation  to  command  the  full  production  that  our 
industrial  and  agricultural  plant  and  our  natural  resources 
and  man  power  make  possible.  There  is  a  vicious  circle. 
We  have  unemployment  because  of  poverty,  and  we  have 
poverty  because  of  unemployment  and  poor  compensation. 
The  unemployed  worker  cannot  purchase  goods  because  he 
has  no  job,  and  he  has  no  job  because  there  are  not  enough 
purchasers  for  the  goods  he  can  produce.  Yet  the  plant  is 
here,  the  machinery  is  here,  the  natural  resources  and  raw 
materials  are  here.  Everything  is  in  readiness,  but  as  long 
as  our  economic  system  is  what  it  is,  everything  must  re- 
main idle  until  someone  starts  a  good  war  which  can  destroy 
the  surplus  goods  as  fast  as  we  can  create  it.  If  the  war 
could  keep  going  and  would  destroy  every  year  one-fourth 
or  more  of  the  goods  we  can  produce,  we  could  give  everyone 
steady  employment  in  the  United  States  at  about  the  cur- 
rent wage  rates.  We  would  send  the  goods  abroad  for  des- 
truction, and  in  return  they  would  send  us  gold,  that  we 
cannot  use,  to  bury  in  a  hole  in  the  ground,  and  presto  our 
unemployment  problem  is  solved.  But  it  would  only  remain 
solved  while  we  sent  them  the  goods  to  destroy  and  they 
sent  us  the  gold  which  we  could  not  use.  If  they  stop  hav- 
ing gold  which  we  cannot  use,  to  ship  us,  then  we  cannot 
send  them  goods  to  destroy,  or  if  we  used  the  gold  to  pur- 
chase goods  from  abroad,  we  would,  in  effect,  be  changing 
goods  for  goods  and  be  back  in  the  same  old  mess  of  un- 
employment. Could  any  society  of  jackasses  or  hairy  apes 
develop  a  crazier  economic  system  than  the  one  we  humans 
live   in? 

Machinists'    Monthly    Journal    -    Feb    1940 

Truly  our  present  methods  are  stupid  and  distress- 
ing, yet  our  system  is  no  different  from  that  used 
throughout  histroy.     The  difference  is  that  now,  on 


this  Continent,  we  are  threatened  with  potential 
abundance  and  abundance  makes  'value'  impossible. 
Our  Price  System  is  folding  up,  not  because  it  is 
'crazy'  or  unpleasant,  but  because  a  Price  System  can 
operate  only  under  conditions  of  Scarcity.  Only  a 
non-price  system,  a  Technocracy,  can  operate  under 
conditions  of  abundance,  such  as  are  being  thrust 
upon  us  by  our  technological  advance. 


Industrial  Research 

From  Industrial  Research  and  Changing  Technolo- 
gy, National  Research  Project  Report  No.  M.  4,  we 
quote  the  following: 

'An  analysis  of  the  National  Research  Council  surveys 
showed  that  between  1927  and  1938  the  number  of  organi- 
zations reporting  research  laboratories  has  grown  from 
about  900  to  more  than  1,700,  affording  employment  to 
nearly  50,000  workers  .... 

'When  it  is  considered  that  a  laboratory  of  20  employees 
(including  scientists  and  their  assistants)  requires  perhaps 
$75,000  annually  for  operating  expenses  alone,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  only  corporations  with  large  capital  assets  would 
be  able  to  maintain  a  laboratory  of  this  relatively  modest 
size. 

'Because  the  scientific  work  is  planned  according  to  the 
requirements  of  the  industries  and  not  on  the  basis  of  ran- 
dom factors,  the  nature  of  future  technological  develop- 
ments can  often  be  predetermined  with  some  degree  of 
accuracy  and  the  hazards  involved  in  making  decisions  as 
to    future    investments    accordingly    reduced. 

'The  threat  of  new  inventions  which  might  suddenly  en- 
danger the  status  of  investments  is  to  a  considerable  extent 
removed,  and  it  therefore  becomes  possible  for  concerns 
"which  operate  large  laboratories  to  plan  their  research 
programs  and  to  use  the  findings  of  research  in  the  light 
of  their  business  policies. 

'However,  when  a  great  deal  of  new  knowledge  is  assem- 
bled in  the  course  of  research  and  when  owners  of  large 
laboratories  are  in  a  position  to  withhold  that  knowledge 
and  to  decide  when  and  to  what  extent  new  inventions  are 
to  be  introduced  and  what  fields  of  science  are  to  receive 
preference  in  further  research,  the  concentration  of  research 
can  become  a  restrictive  element.'     (Bold  face  ours) 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER.     B.     C     JULY— 1940 


PAGE     SEVEN 


The  constant  development  of  new  inventions  and 
methods,  even  though  carefully  'planned',  is  increas- 
ing our  ability  to  produce  and  still  further  to  re- 
move Scarcity  from  this  Continent. 

When  a  condition  of  Scarcity  is  no  longer  possible 
here,  we  will  have  to  install  a  Technological  Control, 
under  which  scientific  discovery  will  not  be  limited 
by  the  margin  of  profit  nor  by  the  urge  to  protect 
investments.  There  will  not  be  any  profit  or  invest- 
ment. 


War  Supplies 

Domestic  Commerce,  Feb.  29,  1940  presents  parts 
of  the  book,  'Adjusting  Your  Business  to  War'  by 
L.  M.  Cherne.  From  that  source  we  quote  the  follow- 
ing: 

'Modern  warfare  a  war  of  materials  rather  than  men. 
During  the  last  three  years,  dress  rehearsal  for  the  next 
war  has  been  held  in  widely  scattered  and  different  portions 
of  the  world:-  in  Ethiopia,  Spain  and  China.  These  pre- 
views have  proved  that  modern  warfare  is  a  struggle  of 
materials  first  and  only  secondarily  of  man-power.  That 
this  is  recognized  by  the  war  agencies  in  the  United  States 
is  of  primary  importance  to  business. 

' The  strategy  of  personnel  depends  now  as 

never  before  on  the  strategy  of  material.  In  modern  war- 
fare supply  becomes  a  staggering  problem.  Victory  is  no 
longer  assured  by  getting  there  first  with  the  most  men. 
There  must  be  equal  and  continuing  speed  with  huge  quan- 
tities of  material  -  cannon,  ammunition,  tanks,  airplanes, 
machine  guns  and  all  the  other  accessories  necessary  to  a 
fighting   army.' 

Despite  the  fact  that  North  America  has  over  half 
of  the  world's  productive  equipment  and  available  re- 
sources, and  that  a  large  portion  of  the  world's  war 
necessities  must  come  from  this  Continent,  we  are  be- 
ing constantly  warned  of  the  dangers  of  foreign  in- 
vasion! 

Our  present  supply  of  imported  political  and  eco- 
nomic concepts  constitute  a  much  more  serious  threat 
to  our  stability  than  any  possible  combination  of 
foreign  military  powers. 


Canadian  Health 

Continuing  our  policy  of  exposing  the  inefficiency 
of  the  present  political-financial  control  in  Canada, 
we  quote  statements  made  by  Hon.  George  Hoadley, 
relative  to  the  'healthy'  condition  existing  in  this 
Dominion.  Speaking  before  members  of  the  Local 
Council  of  Women,  and  the  Metropolitan  Health 
Board  in  Vancouver,  the  speaker,  as  reported  by  the 
VancouverSun  April   18th,   1940,  said: 

'The  health  situation  in  Canada  must  be  viewed  with  great 
concern. 

'Canada  has  the  highest  infant  mortality  rate  among 
white   races   of  the   British   Empire.     Over  6500   Canadians 


die  each  year  of  tuberculosis.  Canada  has  40,000  patients 
in  mental  hospitals,  with  nearly  9000  more  beds  needed. 
Nearly  5000  more  doctors  and  6500  more  dentists  are  needed 
for  adequate  medical   services. 

'Adequate  preventive  services  could  have  eliminated  ne- 
cessity for  a  large  proportion  of  the  40,000  patients  in 
mental  hospitals,  the  550,000  cases  of  venereal  disease, 
and  50%  of  the  deaths  from  tuberculosis.  Pneumonia, 
ieeblemindednes,  diptheria,  typhoid  fever,  diarrhoea,  en- 
teritis could  also  be  made  fatal  to  much  smaller  numbers. 

'No  nation  is  great  that  neglects  its  children',  he  quoted, 
turning  his  attention  to  infant  and  maternal  mortality. 
More  than  10,000  deaths  of  children  under  one  year  could 
have  been  prevented  in  1937  alone,  he  stated,  using  as 
evidence  figures  from  Dr.  G.  M.  Weir's  report. 

'Chances  of  a  baby  surviving  are  better  in  some  provinces 
than  others,  he  went  on,  pointing  out  that  in  Quebec,  98  out 
of  every  1000  born  alive,  die  before  their  first  birthday. 
Prematurity,  congenital  malformations,  congenital  debility 
cause  57.2  of  these  deaths,  much  of  which  could  have  been 
prevented   by   adequate  prenatal   medical   care. 

'Outside  of  tuberculosis,  childbirth  is  the  leading  cause 
of  death  of  all  women  between  15  and  50.  The  average 
age  for  mothers  dying  is  31. 

'We  know  60,000  young  Canadians  lost  their  lives  in  1914- 
1918,  but  we  do  not  realize  that  103,000  young  Canadians 
and  mothers  died  in  1931-1935.  On  the  average  we  are 
losing  three  mothers  a  day,  and  54  children  under  five  years 
per  day.  Public  health,  he  pointed  out  is  the  first  line  of 
defence  against  disease  and  death,  and  he  urged  that  every 
city  should  spend  the  minumum  per  capita  of  $1  per  person. 
Only  Toronto  reaches  this. 

'Canada,  he  explained,  lacks  4769  doctors  and  6323  den- 
tists to  reach  the  minimum  standard  of  one  doctor  caring 
for  every  700  people  and  one  dentist  for  every  1000.  More- 
over, 28  percent  of  the  population  concentrated  in  20  cities, 
is  served  by  45  per  cent  of  the  doctors.  Only  a  bare  10  per 
cent  of  the  population  have  family  incomes  of  over  $2950 
and  are  in  a  position  to  afford  adequate  medical  attention.' 

Statements  such  as  this  are  nothing  new  to  Tech- 
nocrats, for  we  do  not  hide  behind  wishful  thinking 
in  our  endeavors  to  get  at  the  facts.  The  issue,  rela- 
tive to  public  health  alone,  is  this: 

Half  of  the  deaths,  broadly  speaking,  could  have 
been  prevented  had  there  been  adequate  health  ser- 
vice. We  need  5000  more  doctors  and  6500  more  den- 
tists, although  hundreds  of  these  men  can  barely  make 
a  living  at  the  present  time.  Only  10  percent  of  the 
population  can  afford  adequate  care.  What  a  situation! 
Another  small  boost  for  the  freedom  of  the  present 
system!  One  is  free  to  be  idle,  because  there  are  no 
jobs,  free  to  become  ill  and  remain  so  because  of  lack 
of  medical  care,  free  to  employ  doctors  and  dentists — 
if  one  has  the  price — and  free  to  talk  about  it — pro- 
vided one  does  not  rub  any  public  official  up  the 
wrong  way!  Freedom  in  the  nonessentials,  what  is 
it  worth? 

If  all  in  this  country  were  allowed  access  to  all  the 
necessities  for  good  health,  our  present  number  of 
doctors  might  be  more  than  ample. 


PAGE     EIGHT 


TECHNOCRACY     DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C     JULY— 1940 


BR 

E&* 

Upturn  -  Slump 

'Factory  Management  and  Maintenance'  May,  1940, 
stated  that: 

'The  economists  who  last  fall  warned  industry — 
to  concentrate  on  the  domestic  upturn  then  in  the  ma- 
king have  been  compelled  by  changing  circumstances 
to  admit  that  war  trade  has  begun  to  haul  us  out  of 
what  might  have  been  a  serious  slump' 

Can  it  be  that,  to  an  economist,  a  'domestic  upturn' 
is  the  same  as  a  'serious  slump'? 


Confusing 

Struck  by  the  continued  paradox  of  poverty  in  the 
midst  of  plenty,  Senator  Joseph  C.  O'Mahoney  of 
Wyoming,  head  of  the  Monopoly  Investigating  Com- 
mittee, inserted  the  following  paragraph  in  one  of  the 
committee's  reports  recently: 

'People  who  are  able  and  willing  to  work  cannot 
find  employment.  People  who  are  hungry  cannot 
provide  themselves  with  food.  People  who  produce 
what  the  idle  and  hungry  need  cannot  sell  it  and  in- 
deed, can  find  a  market  for  only  a  small  portion  of 
what  they  are  capable  of  producing.  Owners  of 
money  and  owners  of  machines  cannot  put  their 
property  to  sure  and  certain  use.  The  abundance  of 
nature  mocks  the  intelligence  of  men,  who  are  incap- 
able of  distributing  it  among  their  own  kind  either 
equitably  or  profitably.' 

After  that  splendid  example  of  intellectual  effort, 
the  good  Senator  spoils  it  all  by  suggesting  that  we 
should  delay  labor-saving  improvements  until  the 
country  is  able  to  assimilate  them! 

As  though  in  an  attempt  to  further  confuse  the 
Senator,  the  Brooking  Institution  publishes  a  study 
showing  that  machine  productivity  has  improved 
since  the  early  twenties,  benefiting  labor  and  consu- 
mers generally! 


Capitalism  the  Creator 

Economist  Carl  Snyder  has  published  a  book 
'Capitalism  the  Creator'  in  which  he  uses  over  400 
pages  to  state  his  case,  that  nations  grow  from  bar- 
barism and  poverty  to  affluence  through  the  accumu- 
lation and  productive  use  of  capital. 

To  the  Technocrat,  the  book  is  just  the  effort  of 
another  economist  addicted  to  the  'cycle  philosophy' 
in  which  nothing  ever  stops.  To  such,  everything 
should  go  on  and  on,  getting  bigger  and  bigger  with 
each   cycle. 

Mr.  Bassett  Jones  debunked  Carl  Snyder  in  his 
'Debt  and  Production',  1933;  writing  of  Snyder's 
time-quantity  relation  in  production,  showing  a 
constant  growth  factor  which  must  increase  at  an  ev- 
er-accelerating   rate.      Basset   Jones   says: 

'Thus  in  1865  production  of  crude  steel  taken  from 
the  smooth  mean  was  21,900  tons  and  growing  at  the 
rate  of  92.4%  a  year.  If  this  had  been  maintained  to 
1930,  then  the  mean  production  would  have  been,  in 
that  year,  32,258,  x  1020  (to  the  twentieth  power)  tons, 
an  amount  of  steel  larger  than  the  earth'. 


Accumulation  and  productive  use  of  Capital  has 
been  the  vogue  for  many  years,  yet  where,  except  on 
this  Continent,  are  affluent  nations?  The  econo- 
mists have  not  yet  learned  that  something  vital, 
something  new  took  place  about  20  years  ago. 


Finance 


Expenditures  —  and  Income 


According  to  Cleveland  Trust  Bulletin  Apr.  15, 
1940,  the  present  U.  S.  administration  expenditures 
are  the  highest  on  record,  at  64.1  dollars  per  capita  per 
year.  Previous  high  was  under  Wilson  administra- 
tion when  expenditures  reached  57.8  dollars  per  capi- 
ta per  year. 

The  significance  of  those  figures  will  be  made  more 
clear  by  the  following  quotation  from  Technocracy 
Digest  No.  68: 

'Sharecroppers  and  tenants  number  53  percent  of 
all  Southern  farmers  and  65  percent  of  all  cotton  far- 
mers. Their  homes  are  hovels;  their  average  income 
is  $73.  Conservative  estimates  put  the  number  of 
ill-housed  families  at  4,000,000;  or  half  of  all  the  fami- 
lies in  the  South'. 

Just  four  million  families  in  one  corner  of  the  Land 
of  Boundless  Opportunity,  receiving  scarcely  more  in 
purchasing  power  than  the  per  capita  cost  of  Federal 
administration! 

• 

The   Forty-five  Billion  Boost 

At  one  time  the  statutory  limit  for  the  Federal  debt 
of  the  USA  was  a  mere  forty-five  billion  dollars;  how- 
ever in  these  times  of  prosperity  when  the  sky  is 
the  limit  in  freedom,  monetary  accumulation — and 
relief,  other  things  had  to  be  planned  for  our  friend 
debt;  it  couldn't  stay  in  a  rut  like  its  more  plebian  as- 
sociates, the  politicians;  great  things  have  been  plan- 
ned for  its  brilliant  future.  In  fact  it  is  anticipated 
by  Wall  Street,  that  almost  supernatural  den  of  wiz- 
ards that  wave  wands  over  our  future,  that  sixty 
billion  dollars  shall  be  the  new  statutory  limit, — un- 
til the  next  boost. 

Nothing  like  giving  a  free  hand  and  an  open  road 
to  those  that  want  to  rise! 

Data  from  Vancouver  Sun,  May  25,  1940 


Research 

'During  1939,  approximately  2000  individual  com- 
panies spent  $215,000,000  for  industrial  research.  Two 
leading  companies  in  this  work  for  progress  were 
Du  Pont  with  a  research  budget  of  $7,000,000  and 
Dow  Chemical  with  one  of  $1,400,000'.  (Scientific 
American,  March  1940) 

Technocracy  salutes  the  enterprise  of  these  con- 
cerns for  their  farsightedness  in  thus  helping  to  in- 
crease the  abundance  of  North  America,  at  the  same 
time  reducing  man-hours  per  unit  produced  and 
therefore  making  it  unnecessary  for  men  to  labour 
long  and  fearfully  for  their  bread.  To  what  greater 
use  could  the  surplus  funds  of  these  great  corpora- 
tions be  applied? 


TECHNOCRACY     DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     JULY— 1940 


PAGE     NINE 


Labor  Productivity  in  the  Cement  Industry 

Output  per  worker  in  the  cement  industry  increased 
75  percent  during  the  period  1904-19,  when  cement 
manufacturing  was  transformed  from  manual  opera- 
tion to  a  high  degree  of  mechanization.  Labor  pro- 
ductivity continued  to  rise  after  1920  and  by  1928,  out- 
put per  man-hour  had  increased  by  an  additional  52 
percent,  and  by  1933  was  almost  25  percent  higher 
than  in  1928. 

Further  rise  in  output  per  man-hour  was  made 
possible  by  the  introduction  of  auxiliary  equipment 
requiring  little  or  no  plant  construction  and  relatively 
small  capital  outlays.  The  increasing  man-hour  out- 
put during  the  thirties  was  thus  accomplished  without 
an  appreciable  increase  in  the  demand  for  machinery 
in  the  cement  industry  which  would  tend  to  create 
employment   opportunities  in   other   industries. 

For  the  industry  as  a  whole,  output  per  man-hour 
more  than  doubled  from  1920  through  1938.  Output 
per  wage  earner  did  not  follow  the  same  trend,  due 
to  the  progressive  decline  in  the  hours  of  work  per 
week  and  per  year.  As  a  result,  the  output  per  wage 
earner  in  1938  was  only  about  38  percent  higher  than 
in  1920. 

It  is  the  interaction  of  these  trends  that  has  so  con- 
fused the  'orthodox  economists',  who  believe  that 
constant  expansion  is  desirable  and  therefore  possible. 
The  effect  of  technological  improvements  upon  em- 
ployment in  an  industry  in  which  the  growth  in  ca- 
pacity has  overtaken  the  demand  is  well  illustrated 
in  the  following  table. 

1919  1925  1938 

Employment  in  the  cement 

industry  25,000 

Average  hours  worked  per 
wage  earner   (index)  103.3 

Total  barrels  produced 

(in  thousands)    81,307 

Output  per  man-hour  96.6 

It  is  apparent  that  the  decrease  in  employment  has 
taken  place  despite  the  decrease  in  the  number  of 
man-hours  per  week. 

The  extension  in  bulk  shipping  has  been  an  import- 
ant factor  contributing  to  the  decrease  in  employment 
in  and  about  the  mills.  When  shipped  in  bulk,  ce- 
ment is  pumped  directly  from  the  silos  to  railroad 
cars  and  requires  the  services  only  of  pump  opera- 
tors. Bag  fillers,  truckers,  and  sack  cleaners  are 
therefore  completely  eliminated.  Moreover,  there  is 
less  need  for  extensive  bag-filling  machinery. 

The  foregoing  resume  of  the  employment  situation 
in  the  portland  cement  industry  is  typical  of  almost 
every  branch  of  industrial  production  in  the  U.  S. 
and  Canada.  The  main  exceptions  are  the  newer  in- 
dustries such  as  aircraft  and  plastics.  These  indus- 
tries are  still  expanding  rapidly  and  employment  is 
increasing.  It  is  notable  that  in  all  the  newer  in- 
dustries, especially  those  influenced  by  large  war 
orders,  the  output  per  man-hour  is  rising  at  a  rate 
not  approached  by  the  older  industrial  developments. 


38,000 

23,600 

94.2 

67.1 

163,388 

105,548 

138.5 

205.3 

When  demand  in  these  newer  industries  tends  to 
level  off  or  decline,  the  decrease  in  man-hour  em- 
ployment will  probably  accelerate  more  rapidly  than 
was  the  case  in  those  industries  which  grew  with  the 
population. 

Data  from  Labor  Information  Bulletin,  Apr.   1940 
Survey  of  Current  Business  and  U.  S.  Abstract. 


Iron  Ore  Technology  {See  front  cover) 

With  the  promise  of  the  best  business  in  years,  the 
Great  Lakes  shipping  is  at  the  peak  of  its  load.  The 
European  war  and  North  American  demand  for  war 
and  defence  requirements  indicates  that  1940  may  be 
the  record  breaker  of  recent  years.  As  Business  Week, 
May  4,  points  out.  few  Americans  'realize  the  traffic 
importance  of  these  inland  lakes.  In  the  limited  navi- 
gation season  (about  seven  months)  the  annual 
movement  of  bulk  freight  on  the  Great.  Lakes  aver- 
ages about  100,000,000  net  tons.  The  annual  move- 
ment of  all  cargo  freight  combined  through  the  Pana- 
ma, Suez,  Manchester  and  Kiel  canals  averaged  70,- 
000,000  tons  between  1920  and  1934.' 

Downbound,  the  special  purpose  ships  haul  most 
of  the  ore  used  by  the  steel  mills  and,  from  terminal 
elevators,  the  grain  that  feeds  the  East  and  that  which 
goes  to  Europe.  At  the  mechanized  ore  docks  on  the 
Lakes  men  merely  direct  the  highly  developed  tech- 
nology and  cargo  is  handled  more  quickly  and  with 
less  toil  than  anywhere  else  on  earth.  As  given  by 
Business  Week,  the  record  times  for  iron  ore  cargo 
handling  are — Loading:  12,507  tons  in  16  minutes  30 
seconds.  Unloading:  12,009  tons  in  2  hours  25  minutes. 


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Pouring  molten  metal  into  an  open  hearth  furnace  for  eon- 
vertion  into  steel.  Operating  at  3000  degress  these  furnaces 
produce  about  225  tons  in  24  hours.  Non-human  energy 
handles  these  huge  buckets.  As  can  be  seen  in  the  picture, 
the  men  look  on. 

The  movement  of  the  powdered  iron  ore  of  the 
Mesaba  range  to  the  steel  mills  presents  one  of  the 
most  complete  examples  of  technological  l^^nr-saving 
obtainable.  The  ore,  dug  up  and  loaded  into  railway 
cars  by  gigantic  power-shovels,  is  hauled  to  various 


PAGE  TEN 


TECHNOCRACY     DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C     JULY— 1940 


shipping  points  on  Lake  Superior.  The  cars  are  run 
up  on  the  series  of  trestles  which  line  the  wharves, 
and,  tipping  to  one  side,  unloaded  directly  into  the 
cargo  boat  below.  As  the  ore  can  be  dumped  the  full 
length  of  the  boat  at  one  time,  balance  is  maintained 
and  no  levelling  operation  is  necessary. 

When  the  boats  reach  the  refining  centers  huge 
mechanical  shovels  dip  into  the  boats  and  bring  up 
the  heavy  ore.  The  loaded  shovels  move  back  and  de- 
posit the  ore  into  waiting  cars  or  on  the  ground.  Our 
front  cover  shows  these  shovels  unloading  an  ore  boat. 
The  operators  merely  ride  back  and  forth,  up  and 
down  on  their  mechanical  giants  and  few  man-hours 
are  required  to  unload  a  boat. 

Every  piece  of  equipment  in  the  transport  of  the 
ore  to  the  refining  centers  is  so  well  designed  for  its 
job  that  the  boats  can  make  a  round  trip  each  week. 


Technology  —  Construction 

Business  Week  April  6,  1940,  carries  the  following 
information  concerning  recent  advances  in  construc- 
tion technology  as  applied  at  the  Wisconsin  State 
Office  Building  at  Madison. 

Concrete  is  forced  vertically  to  a  height  of  185  feet 
through  a  6-in.  pipe  by  the  ram  action  of  a  Pumpcrete 
unit  developed  by  Chain  Belt  Co.  A  flexible  nozzle 
hocked  to  the  pipe  takes  the  place  of  wheelbarows  in 
distributing  the  concrete. 

Wheelbarrow-pushers,  hod-carriers  and  sweat  are 
taking  a  terrific  beating  these  days.  The  new  pump- 
ing unit  will  distribute  large  measures  of  concrete  and 
small  portions  of  purchasing-power — for  purchasing 
power  in  a  Price  System  is  distributed  through  man- 
hour  employment.     Farewell  to  more  toil. 


Little  hand-work  takes  place  in  these  great  holes.  Track  is 
laid  as  the  work  progresses  and  the  shovels  load  the  ore 
directly  into  the  railway  cars.  The  Mesaba  range  contains 
almost  all  of  the  world's  powdered  iron  ore  and  provides 
over  half  of  the  iron  used  on  this  Continent. 


Almost  all  the  time  is  travel  time  as  the  loading  and 
unloading  combined  usually  account  for  only  about 
five  hours  per  trip.  During  the  busy  part  of  the  ship- 
ping season  on  the  Lakes,  boats  are  seldom  out  of 
sight  of  each  other  along  the  800  mile  route  from 
Duluth  to  the  refining  centers. 

The  picture  of  the  open  pit  iron  mine  gives  some 
idea  of  the  stupendous  size  of  the  workings.  In  the 
right  foreground  are  two  men  (%  in.  from  right  mar- 
gin and  1  in.  from  bottom)  who  seem  insignificant  in 
such  a  hole.  The  largest  open-pit  iron  mine  in  the 
Mesaba  range  is  two  and  half  miles  long,  350  feet 
deep  and  has  about  70  miles  of  railway  track.  Half 
the  unemployed  in  the  U.S.  could  crowd  into  this 
hole,  but  the  work  they  would  be  able  to  do  with 
hand  tools  would  be  insufficient  to  maintain  present 
mechanical  production  rates.  Here,  as  in  all  other 
phases  of  North  American  industry,  the  undirectional, 
irreversible  trend  is  toward  more  mass,  more  distance, 
in  less  time,  with  fewer  man-hours. 


Technology — Freight  Handling 

According  to  an  advertisement  in  May  issue  of 
'Factory',  many  firms  are  wasting  energy  in  using  the 
old  2-leg-power  push-and-pull  trucks  for  moving 
goods.  The  remedy  is  'Mobilifts'  the  mighty  mechani- 
cal midgets.  With  an  operator,  they  carry  up  to  a 
ton,  lift  and  pile  up  to  a  14  ft.  ceiling;  go  in  and  out 
of  trucks,  freight  cars  and  elevators;  operate  for  less 
than  25  cents  per  hour. 

In  many  phases  of  industry  such  a  machine  would 
displace  from  ten  to  twenty  men,  the  work  being  done 
by  non-human  energy  which  never  lags,  and  the  oper- 
ating cost  less  than  enough  to  keep  even  one  man  in 
beans! 


Make  More  Jobs 

'Factory  Management  and  Maintenance'  May  1940, 
highlighted  the  following: 

'Washing  machine  manufacturer  put  four  of  his 
machines  to  work  on  soiled  wiping  cloths — found  he 
saved  $500.  a  month.  No  reason  why  other  plants 
can't  save  the  same  way.' 

Of  course  there  isn't!  The  Digest  looks  forward  to 
a  spread  of  such  economy.  It  will  cost  a  lot  of  jobs 
in  the  wiping  cloth  industry  but  it  will  lower  operating 
costs  elsewhere — and  lowered  operating  costs,  accord- 
ing to  economists,  makes  jobs. 


It's  in  the  Bag! 

.  A  glimpse  into  the  unromatic,  but  realistic  world  of 
the  sack-sewers,  as  given  in  'The  American  Miller' 
March  1940,  shows  us  that  all  is  not  well  even  in  that 
comparatively  obscure  corner  of  industry: 

'Sewing  grain  sacks  the  new  Union  Special  Style 
14500  R  sack  sewing  machine  will  do  4  to  5  times  as 
much  as  a  hand  sewer.  It  will  handle  a  variety  of 
bags,  large  and  small,  burlap,  paper  and  cotton,  and 
anybody   can  operate  it.' 

We    see    some    of    our    friends    'getting    the  sack'. 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     JULY— 1940 


PAGE     ELEVEN 


Beside  these  mammoth 
units  a  six  ft.  man  stands 
barely  as  high  as  the 
radiator.  In  America  as 
more  work  is  done  fewer 
man-hours  and  fewer 
machines    are    used. 


World's  Largest  Logging  Truck  Unit 

According  to  the  West     Coast     Lumberman,     new 

heights  in  log  transportation  by  motor  truck  were 
reached  when  the  Lakeview  Logging  Co.  started 
rolling  logs  out  of  the  woods  on  the  largest  trucks 
and  trailers  ever  built  for  this  service. 

With  trailer,  these  units  weigh  35,000  lbs.  and 
carry  a  pay  load  of  110,000  lbs.  Designed  to  carry 
15,000  feet  of  logs  at  relatively  high  speeds,  they  re- 
present the  engineers'  answer  to  the  demand  for 
bigger  and  more  efficient  machines. 

These  trucks,  built  by  Kenworth,  are  powered  with 
200  H.P.  diesel  engines  and  are  so  large  that  even  a 
50  ton  load  of  logs  appears  comparatively  small.  The 
13  foot  wide  trailers  are  the  largest  ever  put  into 
service.  Designed  to  average  12,000  to  14,000  feet  of 
logs  per  load  these  units  are  expected  to  move  about 
75,000  feet  per  day  each,  on  a  15-mile  haul.  At  least 
one  load  of  over  22,000  feet  has  been  hauled. 

To  accomodate  these  large  units  a  private  logging 
road  had  to  be  built.  As  befits  such  modern  equip- 
ment, the  road  was  built  with  three  bulldozers,  two 
Carryalls,  a  road-patrol  and  a  grader. 

The  logging  on  the  Lakeview  'show'  is  entirely  by 
tractor,  using  'Caterpillar'  tractors  and  arches. 

Again  the  unidirectional  American  trend,  less 
man-hours  used,  more  work  done! 


Surplus 


Wheat  Supplies 


Canadian  wheat  in  storage  May  3,  last,  amounted  to 
298,448,222  bushels.  Accumulated  exports  Aug.  1,  1939 
to  May  3,  1940  amounted  to  123,689,092  bushels,  only 
89,013,362  bushels  of  which  are  of  the  current  crop. 
If  exports  continue  at  the  average  rate  of  the  last 
nine  months  we  will  still  have  about  257,000,000,  bu- 
shels on  hand  at  the  end  of  the  present  crop  year. 
This  is  equivalent  to  over  23  bushels  for  every  man, 
woman  and  child  in  Canada,  but  don't  worry  about 
your  portion — this  wheat  is  not  for  Canadians,  who 
only  grow  the  stuff. 


Forbidden  Fruit 

'While  asking  for  two  additional  benefits,  Nova 
Scotia  fruit  growers  today  accepted  the  proposal  of 
the  Federal  government  to  guarantee  returns  on  the 
1940  apple  crop  of  the  Annapolis  Valley  to  the  extent 
of  $2,467,125.'    (Vancouver  Sun,  April  31,   1940) 

While  thousands  are  forbidden  the  nourishing  ad- 
ditions of  apples  to  their  diet,  2xk  millions  'droppeth 
as  the  gentle  rain  from  Heaven'  and  the  producers 
of  these  goods  are  saved  for  another  day — until  the 
next  crop. 


Technology-Brake  Pistons 

It  is  now  possible  to  face  off  hydraulic  brake  pistons 
at  no  less  than  3000  units  an  hour  with  a  machine  re- 
cently installed  by  the  Doehler  Die  Casting  Co.;  fol- 
lowing this,  the  burnishing  of  the  bearing  end  takes 
place  at  2700  units  an  hour,  finished  to  within  0.0005 


in. 


Iron  Age,  April  22,  1940 


Signs  of  the  Time 

Throughout  history  war  time  has  been  a  time  of 
sacrifice;  those  at  home  have  always  had  to  cut  down 
the  consumption  of  food  and  clothing  to  a  minimum 
in  order  to  feed  and  clothe  the  soldiers.  War-time 
sacrifice  has  become  one  of  the  cardinal  virtues  and 
is  supposed  to  be  the  measure  of  one's  loyalty. 


PAGE    TWELVE 


TECHNOCRACY     DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     JULY— 1940 


During  the  last  ten  years  this  country  has  become 
the  home  of  the  paradox  but  it  has  remained  for  the 
impact  of  war  upon  the  Canadian  economy  to  bring 
out  the  epitome  of  paradoxy.  Every  issue  of  the 
Metropolitan  newspapers  carry  warnings  or  re- 
quests for  more  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  citizens. 
Often  on  the  next  page  is  to  be  seen  a  statement 
that  we  must  use  more  of  the  products  of  the 
country. 

Meat  stores  post  signs:  'Eat  more  pork  and  help 
the  farmers'  war-effort.'  'One  more  pork  roast  per 
week  for  each  family  will  help  the  farmers'  war- 
effort'.  Produce  shops  use  signs  such  as:  'Eat  more 
eggs  and  help  the  war-effort'.  Soon  we  will  probably 
be  seeing  signs  asking  us  to  eat  more  wheat,  more 
vegetables,  more  fruit  and  wear  more  clothes. 

Here  the  w:.y  to  sacrifice  is  to  eat  more!  The 
measure  of  loyalty  is  the  quantity  of  surplus  one 
can  consume!  Such  a  condition  would  seem  to  be 
enough  to  awaken  even  an  economist  to  the  change 
that  has  taken  place  on  this  Continent  in  recent 
years.  Technocracy  has  long  indicated  that  abundance 
was  growing  on  this  Continent  and  no  Price  System 
method  would  be  found  to  deal  with  it.  Even  a 
great  war  is  not  sufficient  to  maintain  scarcity  here 
and  loyal  citizens  are  being  asked  to  cooperate  in 
using  up  the  surplus,  so  that  sufficient  scarcity  ob- 
tains to  keep  the  price  up! 

Gluttony  —  under  the  impact  of  Power,  thou  hast 
become  a  Virtue! 


Field  Activities 


Mobile  Organization  Unit 

Galveston,  April  19  The  M.  0.  U.  staff,  all  Pacific  Coast- 
ers, are  thrilled  to  be  camped  alongside  Atlantic  waters  in 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  In  this  city  excellent  cooperation  has 
been  received  from  the  News  Tribune  and  station  KLWF, 
as  also  from  many  ministers  with  pulpit  announcement  of 
the  meeting.  In  spite  of  this  help  the  meeting,  held  in  Judge 
Holman's  court  room,  was  the  smallest  yet  in  Texas. 

Beaumont  and  Port  Arthur,  April  24  and  25.  Here  Tech- 
nocracy received  splendid  help  from  the  Port  Arthur  News 
and  the  Beaumont  Journal,  the  latter  covering  speaker 
Clark's  appearance  before  the  local  Kiwanians,  and  the 
Y.M.C.A.  As  in  Galveston,  many  ministers  announced  the 
lecture  from  their  pulpits.  Organizer  Cameron  presented 
Technocracy  to  the  leaders  of  the  National  Marine  Union 
of  the  A.  F.  L.,  and  to  the  C.  I.  0.,  and  on  April  25  to  the 
Ladies  Auxiliary.  On  the  23rd.  Mr.  Clark  addressed  a 
luncheon  meeting  of  Beaumont  Kiwanians.  This  meeting 
was  arranged  with  the  help  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce 
and  was  noteworthy  for  providing  a  sell-out  of  literature. 
A  second  lecture  was  immediately  arranged  for  the  Kiwan- 
ians of  Port  Arthur  with  equally  satisfactory  results.  Mrs. 
Cameron  again  addressed  the  C.  I.  0.  and  was  asked  by  the 
Business  and  Professional  Women's  Club  for  a  Technocracy 
speaker  at  their  opening  session.  Following  a  small  public 
meeting  at  the  Beaumont  Y.  M.  C.  A.  a  study  group  w** 
formed  under  the  guidance  of  Leo  Walsh.  Port  Arthur's 
public  meeting  at  the  Goodhue  Hotel  resulted  in  a  40% 
sign-up  with  Rowland  Duke  recommended  as  organizer. 
Here  a  study  group  was  also  formed. 

Austin,  April  30.  'Advocating  Sixteen  Hour  Work  Week  - 
He   Tells   How  to   Solve   Economic   Ills'   Technocracy   made 


the  front  page  of  the  Austin  Daily  Tribune.  With  the  aid 
of  Dr.  Montgomery,  economist,  and  other  professors  of  the 
State  University,  four  lectures  were  delivered  at  that  in- 
stitution where  ten  thousand  students  made  Technocracy 
the  theme  of  discussion  on  the  campus.  Free  literature 
was  exhausted,  much  literature  was  sold,  and  many  X  cards 
were  signed  by  students.  William  Penn  Jones  will  lead  the 
resulting  study  group. 

Georgetown,  May  2.  Plans  called  for  a  one  day  stop  at 
this  town,  but  due  to  the  advance  publicity  of  Dr.  Gran- 
berry's  Emancipator  two  days  were  used  up  with  excellent 
results,  including  three  lectures  at  the  Southwestern  Uni- 
versity followed  by  a  public  meeting  with  25%    sign-up. 

Waco,  May  6.  M.  O.  U.'s  first  hour's  activity  in  Waco  re- 
sulted in  the  scheduling  of  three  lectures,  to  Economics, 
Sociology,  and  Geology  classes  at  the  Baylor  Baptist  Uni- 
versity, and  a  public  meeting  in  the  City  Hall  Council 
chamber.  A  lecture  by  Mrs.  Cameron  to  the  Business  and 
Professional  Women's  Club  was  also  delivered.  J.  M.  Jewell 
will  keep  things  alive  until  the  arrival  of  a  follow-up 
speaker. 

M.  0.  U.  is  expected  to  return  to  B.  C.  during  July. 


Cyril  Large  Continental  Tour 

As  McBride  was  our  last  scheduled  meeting  on  the  B.  C. 
itinerary  we  were  unable  to  give  a  complete  report  in  our 
previous  issue.  On  Monday,  April  29,  Speaker  Large  ad- 
dressed the  students  of  the  McBride  High  School  with  stu- 
dents, principal  and  teachers  indicating  satisfaction  and 
further  investigation.  Upon  leaving  McBride  Speaker  Large 
was  saluted  aboard  a  freight  train  operated  by  fellow  Tech- 
nocrats who  transported  the  Speaker  over  100  miles  on  the 
strength  of  his   membership   card. 

Alberta  Summary 

Organizers  Chapman  and  Eglen  arrived  in  Jasper  to  as- 
sist the  Speaker  in  organizing  Northern  Alberta.  The  Ma- 
sonic Hall  was  filled  to  capacity  to  hear  Large  on  May  1. 
Much  interest  was  aroused  with  a  good  sign-up.  Study 
classes  have  resulted  under  the  leadership  of  Archie  Clap- 
son. 

Cadomin:  Much  credit  is  due  organizer  Joy  for  the  ex- 
tensive expansion  resulting  from  this  meeting  held  in  the 
Community  Hall  on  May  3.  Edmonton  public  meeting  was 
held  in  the  Masonic  Auditorium  with  a  capacity  of  450. 
Membership  meeting  held  on  May  7.  11353-1  undertaking 
extensive  preparations  for  painting  cars.  Speaker  Large 
addressed  70  non  members  at  Lloydminster  in  the  Alberta 
Hall  on  May  8.  Vermilion  meeting  held  in  the  Masonic  Hall 
on  May  9  drew  potential  members  from  a  radius  of  50  miles. 
The  Wetaskewan  meeting  resulted  in  a  healthy  study  class 
being  formed  which  will  be  under  the  leadership  of  Organi- 
zer Eglen.  Organizer  Hall  worked  hard  to  put  over  the 
first  Technocracy  meeting  to  be  held  in  Rimbley  scheduled 
in  the  Rimbley  Theatre  on  May  13.  A  new  idea  was  under- 
taken in  promoting  the  financing  of  this  meeting  insofar  as 
admission  price  was  Gents  25c  with  Ladies  and  Students 
free.  This  procedure  provided  a  better  stimulant  than  col- 
lection meetings.  Past  experiences  have  recommended  col- 
lection meetings  at  unorganized  points  but  rapid  growth  of 
the  Organization  makes  this  recommendation  extinct  with 
the  exception  of  very  remote  cases.  Though  bad  weather 
was  responsible  for  the  small  turnout  the  Stettler  meeting 
resulted  in  a  33  per  cent  sign-up,  the  meeting  being  held  in 
the  Town  Hall  on  May  14.  Stettler  provided  the  last  meet- 
ing scheduled  under  the  supervision  of  the  Edmonton  Sec- 
tion. Much  of  the  success  of  expansion  results  through  this 
territory  can  be  directed  to  Organizers  Chapman  and  Joy, 
and  Organizer  Eglen  who  accompanied  the  speaker  and 
provided  transportation  in  an  official  car  throughout  the 
territory.  How  about  a  follow-up  through  your  territory 
Edmonton?  Red  Deer  was  the  first  meeting  scheduled  in 
Calgary's  territory  with  a  capacity  house  in  the  Elks  Hall 
on  May  15.  Much  interest  was  aroused  which  should  go  far 
toward  further  expansion.  The  U.F.A.  Hall  was  the  setting 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     JULY — 1940 


PAGE     THIRTEEN 


of  the  Alix  meeting  of  an  over  capacity  hall  on  May  17.  At 
Calgary  on  May  18  Speaker  Large  addressed  a  Farad  group 
with  members  coming  from  a  radius  of  50  miles;  the 
meeting  being  followed  by  a  dance.  On  Sunday,  May  18, 
the  Farads  visited  the  'Old  Swimming  Hole'  wearing  their 
monads  on  bathing  suits.  On  May  20  Calgary  staged  their 
public  meeting  in  their  SHQ  which  was  filled  to  capacity. 
Burn  Middleton  and  Sect'y  Marion  Ogden  drove  Speaker 
Large  from  Calgary  to  High  River  and  gave  capable  as- 
sistance in  putting  over  their  meeting,  in  a  capacity  hall 
with  contacts  attending  from  Blackie  and  Turner  Valley. 
High  River  supports  a  creditable  SHQ  on  the  street  level. 
Speaker  Jack  Libeau  accompanied  Cyril  Large  to  Drum- 
heller  for  their  meeting  in  the  I.O.O.F.  hall  on  May  22.  Hot 
weather  was  attributed  to  the  small  but  attentive  audience. 
How  about  Speaker's  authorization  Jack  Libeau?  ATH 
12349  salutes  Drumheller  in  their  anticipation  of  obtaining 
SHQ.  Further  itineraried  points  in  Alberta  still  to  be  heard 
from  include  Pincher  Creek,  Lethbridge  and  Medicine  Hat. 
Saskatchewan    Summary 

The  Saskatchewan  itinerary  will  include  the  following 
meetings  during  the  allotted  period  of  June  1-30;  Swift 
Current,  Shaunavon,  Assiniboia,  Kenaston,  Saskatoon,  Maid- 
stone, Medstead,  North  Battleford,  Prince  Albert,  Yorkton, 
Regina  and  Estevan.  Inquire  at  your  nearest  Section  for 
the  date  of  their  meeting. 

Minot,  N.  D. 

From  Estevan  Speaker  Large  will  be  routed  south  to 
Minot,  North  Dakota  for  expansion  work  from  July  1-10. 
Detailed  reports  of  these  activities  have  not  been  received 
at  the  time  of  going  to  press. 

Manitoba  Summary 

From  Minot  the  Speaker  will  be  routed  into  Manitoba  for 
the  period  of  July  11-31  to  undertake  the  following  meet- 
ings; Brandon,  Minnedosa,  Neepawa,  Dauphin,  Winnipeg 
and  Emerson. 

U.S.  Summary 

From  Emerson  the  Speaker  will  leave  Canada  for  the 
United  States  undertaking  the  following  tentative  itinerary. 
Grand  Forks,  N.D.  August  1-6;  Fargo,  N.D.,  August  7-12; 
Minneapolis,  Minn.  August  14-21;  Sioux  Falls,  S.D.,  Au- 
gust23-26;  Omaha,  Neb.,  August  28-September  4;  St. 
Joseph  Mo.,  September  6-8;  Topeka,  Kan.,  September  9-10; 
Kansas  City,  Mo.  September  11-12;  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  Sep- 
tember 14-17;  Springfield,  111.,  September  18-22;  Apple- 
ton,  Wis.  September  24-28;  Milwaukee,  Wis.,  September 
29-October  2;  Chicago,  111.,  Oct.  3-7;  Akron  ATH  Terri- 
tory including  Erie  and  Detroit,  October  8-29;  Toronto, 
Ont.  October  30-November  5;  Buffalo,  N.Y.;  November 
6-10.     Watch  the  Digest  for  more  reports. 

Paul  Sykes  Tour 

Further  reports  on  the  Okanagan-Yoho  Valley  Tour  gives 
added  indications  that  Technocracy  is  rolling  through  this 
territory.  At  Creston  on  April  29  Speaker  Sykes  addressed 
the  membership  of  11649-1  on  phases  of  function  which 
will  greatly  assist  in  future  expansion.  ATH  salutes  11649- 
1  in  their  advance  into  SHQ  on  the  main  street.  On  April 
30  the  Speaker  addressed  the  public  meeting  in  the  United 
Church  Hall;  intelligent  question  period  ensued.  Cran- 
brook  membership  meeting  held  in  their  SHQ  on  May  1. 
A  small  but  interested  attendance  listened  to  Speaker  Sykes 
outline  Technocracy's  presentation  in  the  K.P.  Hall  on  May 
2.  The  Speaker  also  addressed  the  Gyro  Club  with  good 
effect.  On  May  3  Speaker  Sykes  was  driven  by  Don  Revie, 
11549-2  to  address  the  Kimberley  membership  on  the  fore- 
going date.  On  May  4  public  meeting  was  held  in  the  K.  P. 
Hall  with  vigorous  reaction  resulting  from  question  period. 
Orne  McGraw  and  members  from  11549-2  provided  trans- 
portation from  Kimberley  to  Golden.  May  6  found  the 
Legion  Hall  filled  to  capacity  as  a  result  of  the  unrelentant 
efforts  of  Organizer  Seward;  literature  sales  exceeding 
all  expectations.  Speaker  Sykes  is  the  first  Speaker  to  in- 
vade this  territory,  which,  together  with  the  unstinted  ef- 
forts of  Organizer  Seward,  has  brought  Golden  over  the  top 
to  Chartered  Strength.  On  May  7  a  membership  meeting 
was   held   with   new   members    in   attendance.      Golden  now 


supports  a  SHQ  on  street  level  on  the  Main  Trans-Canada 
Highway. 

Interest  in  Technocracy  has  risen  to  such  a  degree  at 
Golden  that  Speaker  Sykes  received  a  request  to  address 
the  Students  at  the  local  high  school.  Additional  interest 
was  stimulated  through  this  meeting  by  the  teacher  who 
requested  a  personal  interview  toward  furthering  his  know- 
ledge on  the  subject.  Through  the  efforts  of  Organizer 
Seward, Field,  second  point  in  his  territory  received  its  first 
official  presentation.  Public  meeting  at  the  f.M.C.A.  with 
complete  literature  sell-out.  A  return  to  Golden  resulted 
in  a  second  public  meeting  being  held  in  their  SHQ  with 
special  interest  given  contacts,  a  33%  sign-up  resulting. 
Parson,  third  unorganized  point  under  Organizer  Seward's 
supervision  gave  excellent  indications  that  Technocracy  has 
achieved  a  solid  foundation  in  this  territory.  Once  again  we 
salute  Organizer  Seward  for  his  fine  work  and  persever- 
ance. 

.Revelstoke  took  advantage  of  the  Speaker  on  May  13  to 
address  their  membership  and  outline  the  operating  and 
function  of  a  Section.  Much  credit  is  due  Organizers  D. 
Elgood  and  G.  Holkstra  in  developing  this  point.  Revelstoke 
public  meeting  was  scheduled  for  May  14  in  the  Selkirk 
Hall.  Reports  indicate  Revelstoke  is  over  the  top.  Member- 
ship of  11850-1  are  looking  for  suitable  S.H.Q.  Good  going! 
Accompanying  the  Speaker  to  Salmon  Arm  were  Ruth 
Spencer,  Organizer  Elgood  and  Bill  Harrington  in  the  lat- 
ter's  official  car.  Farad  meeting  held  in  S.H.Q.  on  the  after- 
noon of  the  17.  Public  meeting  the  same  evening  in  the  over 
capacity  Gym  Hall.  Select  sign-up.  Membership  meeting 
held  in  S.H.Q.  on  May  19  with  the  speaker  defining  function. 
On  May  20,  21  and  23  11950-1  promoted  public  meetings  in 
unorganized  outlying  points  with  excellent  results.  May 
20  Public  meeting  at  Falkland  resulted  in  42  per  cent  sign- 
up and  two  study  classes  being  formed. 

Notch  Hill,  second  unorganized  point,  showed  a  capacity 
hall  on  May  22  with  an  extremely  interesting  question 
period.  Two  study  classes  resultant.  On  May  23  Speaker 
Sykes  addressed  the  Canoe  community  with  good  results. 
Organizer  Dick  Elgood  has  undertaken  extensive  prepara- 
tory work  with  excellent  results.  ATH  recognizes  the  in- 
dications received  throughout  the  Tour  that  our  Organizers 
are  on  the  job.  What's  happening  to  our  Public  Speaking 
Classes?  ATH  needs  more  authorized  speakers  to  comply 
with  the  demands  from  the  field. 

The  last  lap  of  the  present  tour  is  as  follows:  Kelowna 
May  25  -  June  7;  Vernon  June  8  -  12;  Kamloops  June  12  - 
14;  Ashcroft  June  15  -  18  and  Mission  June  19  -  20. 


Paul  J.  Sykes 
Extensive  arrangements  are  well  underway  for  Speaker 
Sykes  to  accompany  Director  Haldeman,  10450-1  on  an  ex- 
tended Tour  of  the  Southern  States.  Paul  Sykes  will  leave 
Vancouver  on  June  26  undertaking  a  sub-tour  through 
Washington,  Idaho  and  Montana,  joining  the  Tour  Party  at 
Grand  Forks,  first  point  of  the  Tour  proper  on  July  2.  The 
two  Speakers  will  travel  by  official  car  with  the  first  lap 
of  their  itinerary  as  follows: 


Grand  Forks,  N.  D.  July  2-6 
Fargo,   N.   D.  July   6-9 

Minneapolis,  M.  July  10-14 
Sioux  Falls,  S.  D.  July  15-17 
Vermilion,  S.  D.  July  18-20 
Sioux  City,  Iowa,  July  21-24 


Omaha,  Neb.,  July  25-26 
St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  July  27 
Kansas  City,  Mo.  July  28-31 
Topeka,  Kan.  August  1-2 
Salina,   Kan.  August   3-6 

Wichita,    Kan.,    August    7-11 


Powell  River 

Speaker  Earl  V.  Bell,  12249-2,  undertook  a  series  of  meet- 
ings at  Powell  River  with  much  success.  The  Speaker  ac- 
companied by  Mrs.  Bell  reached  12449-3  on  May  12  by  way 
of  Vancouver  Island,  undertaking  unscheduled  meetings  at 
Nanaimo,  Port  Alberni,  Courtenay  and  Victoria.  On  the 
afternoon  of  May  14  the  Speaker  addressed  the  students  of 
the  Powell  River  High  School  who  proved  a  very  receptive 
and  enthusiastic  audience.  Arrangements  also  included  ad- 
dress to  the  memberships  of  the  Masonic  and  Elks  Lodges 
on  May  14  and  15  respectively.  Question  periods  dragged 
into  the  'wee  small  hours'  with  definite  interest  established. 
The  Speaker  conducted  Study  Classes  and  house  meetings 
at   both   Powell   River   and   Lang   Bay,   defining  the   educa- 


PAGE     FOURTEEN 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     JULY— 1940 


tional  and  functional  structure  of  the  Organization.  Many 
functional  contacts  were  interviewed  with  excellent  results. 
Saturday,  May  18  found  the  Scout  Hall  filled  to  over  cap- 
acity. The  Powell  River  audience  received  Technocracy's 
presentation  with  an  understanding  and  an  eagerness  to  do 
something  about  it.  ATH  again  Salutes  a  newly  Chartered 
Section.  Good  Work! 

Chilliwack  -   Mission 

Speaker  A.  R.  Deaves  made  a  short  tour  to  Chilliwack 
and  Mission  conducting  Public  Meetings  on  May  1  and  2, 
respectively.  Chilliwack  meeting  held  in  the  I.O.O.F.  Hall 
with  good  results  achieved.  The  Mission  meeting  took  place 
in  the  Elks  Hall  with  a  definite  interest  shown  throughout. 
ATH  Salutes  a  progressive  membership  and  newly  Charter- 
ed  Section. 

Ryder  Lake 

One  of  our  unauthorized  speakers  came  to  the  front  this 
month  in  member  M.  0.  Wildfong,  12149-1  who  spoke  at 
Ryder  Lake  on  May  21  to  a  group  of  interested  contacts 
with  good  results.  How  about  authorization  Milton? 


Section  Reports 

7645,  Ottawa,  Ont. — In  recent  months,  the  number  of 
local  Technocrats  has  increased  400%! 

8141,  Area — Wm.  DeVille  and  Wilson  Brooks  are  training 
a  number  of  speakers  in  the  technique  of  radio  speech  after 
making  transcriptions  of  the  voices  of  several  members  and 
selecting  those  that  were  suitable.  Scripts  for  two  broad- 
casts have  been  approved  by  CHQ.  One  outstanding  fact 
about  this  broadcast  set-up  is  that  the  ARC  did  not  find  it 
necessary  to  go  outside  of  the  Organization  for  anything 
other  than  the  transmitter  to  put  it  on  the  air.  The  scripts, 
the  transcriptions,  the  sound  recording  equipment,  and  the 
voices  recorded  were  produced  entirely  within  Technocracy 
Inc.  This  is  an  excellent  example  of  the  versatility  of  the 
members. 

8141-3,  Akron,  Ohio — We  are  pleased  to  receive  '8141-3 
News  Bulletin  promptly  each  month.  Akron,  please  note 
that  the  address  of  12349-1  is  724  Seymour  St.,  Vancouver, 
B.  C. 

9950,  Tilson,  Man. — Frequently  we  hear  from  non-mem- 
bers who  are  interested  in  helping  Technocracy.  A  non- 
member  writes  from  Tilson:  'I  came  here  one  year,  nine 
months  ago.  Then  Technocracy  was  unknown.  Today  people 
are  asking  about  it  and  talking  about  it.  I  pass  my  Digest 
along  as  much  as  possible'. 

10249-1,  Estevan,  Sask. — recently  authorized,  has  opened 
a  S.H.Q.  in  a  downtown  location. 

10250-1,  Melville,  Sask. — On  May  1  moved  into  a  new 
S.H.Q.  sufficiently  large  to  permit  the  holding  of  public 
meetings.  On  April  26  Speaker  W.  G.  Chapman  gave  an 
address  in  the  Melville  Town  Hall  to  acquaint  the  young 
people  of  Melville  with  Technocracy.  It  is  likely  that  a 
Farad  Section  will  be  going  soon  as  a  result.  On  May  6 
Speaker  Leona  Collins  spoke  to  the  Local  Teachers'  Feder- 
ation by  request  and  on  May  11  spoke  to  between  80  and  90 
people  in  Kalley.  The  second  public  meeting  of  May  6  was 
held  in  S.H.Q.  with  material  results. 

10251-1,  Yorkton,  Sask. — HQ  of  one  of  the  six  Expansion 
Ai-eas  in  Saskatchewan,  Yorkton  is  publishing  a  Section 
bulletin,  the  'Out-Post'  and  correspondence  should  be  ad- 
dressed to  W.  G.  Chapman,  Governor  of  Publications, 
10251-1,  Parkerview,  Sask.  The  Yorkton  Enterprise  gave 
half  a  column  of  its  space  recently  to  an  article  headed 
'Technocracy  Investigates'.  All  publicity  for  Technocracy  is 
good  publicity. 

10449-1,  Bures,  Sask. — tells  us  that  study  classes  have 
continued  all  winter  (which  means  plenty  in  this  part  of 
the  country).  Recruits  continue  to  arrive  and  the  Section 
is  growing  fast.  The  Director  in  company  with  Org.  Don 
Sinclair  as  speaker  will  soon  extend  operations  into  Amulet, 
Edgeworth,  Parry,  and  Pangman. 

10549-2,  Assiniboia,  Sask. — is  now  issuing  a  Bulletin.  The 
Digest  has  received  no  copies  to  date.  How  about  it,  Assini- 
boia? 


10552,  St.  Louis,  Sask. — A  communication  has  been  re- 
ceived in  Prince  Albert  from  St.  Louis  stating  that  they 
are  'fully  organized'.  Clifford  Galloway  is  Director  and 
Frank  Seelinger  is  Chief  of  Staff. 

10552-4,  Hagen,  Sask. — This  magazine  considers  the  fol- 
lowing report  from  Chief  of  Staff  Hagen  of  particular 
significance:  'One  year  ago  there  were  no  Technocrats  here 
but  today  there  is  a  functional  chartered  Section  which 
distributes  in  the  vicinity  of  50  issues  of  various  Technoc- 
racy publications  per  month.  One  year  and  three  months 
ago  there  were  no  Sections  in  this  R.D.  but  today  we  have 
six  chartered   Sections   with  two  more  near  charter.' 

10652-1,  Saskatoon,  Sask. — The  House  Group  Committee, 
within  the  New  Membership  function  and  supervised  by 
G.  Spicer,  promotes  house  groups  and  membership  drives. 
In  six  weeks  or  less,  77  persons  have  been  made  acquainted 
with  Technocracy  in  Saskatoon,  by  this  means,  and  a  good 
proportion  have  become  members.  Speakers  have  been  W. 
Harrison,  W.  Spicer,  J.  Hunter,  H.  Ferris,  S.  Burr,  and  W. 
Brunskill. 

11352-2,  Alix,  Alta. — was  the  third  point  in  April  to 
reach  charter  strength  as  the  result  of  a  sign-up  of  several 
new  members  at  the  Lebeau  meeting.  If  Org.  Jennings 
carries  on  as  he  has  been  doing,  we  may  expect  to  see  all 
the   surrounding  districts   organized    in   record   time. 

11734-1,  Hinkley,  Calif.— On  Sunday,  May  19th,  the  Tech- 
nocrats of  the  Mojave  Desert  will  hold  their  6th  Annual 
Picnic.  Contrary  to  the  accepted  methods  used  at  gatherings 
of  this  kind  all  speakers  will  be  unauthorized  speakers,  one 
of  the  objects  being  to  encourage  the  authorization  of 
speakers.  The  question  period  will  be  in  charge  of  an 
authorized   speaker. 

11749-1,  Trail,  B.  C. — in  a  new  SHQ  is  attracting  con- 
siderable attention  through  their  window  displays,  and  has 
formed  a  special  committee  including  the  available  artistic 
talent  for  the  execution  of  this  function.  The  softball  team, 
in  gray  sweaters  with  6  in.  monads  on  the  chest,  is  showing 
great  promise  and  causing  much  comment.  Eighteen 
gray  suits  are  now  in  circulation  and  the  gray 
fleet  will  soon  be  augmented  by  two  or  three  more  cars. 

11749-4,  Fruitvale,  B.  C.  —  Reports  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Adolph: 
'We  have  two  study  classes  every  week.  Made  a  6ft. 
Technocracy  sign  with  a  12  in.  Monad  on  it  and  have  it 
hanging    on    the    front    of   house   we    use    as    Headquarters.' 

12049-1,  Princeton,  B.  C— Reports  Chief -of -Staff  G.  L. 
Gibson:  'As  a  result  of  the  Paul  Sykes  tour  projecting  into 
our  town  of  Princeton  we  local  Technocrats  have  gained 
new  enthusiasm  with  the  result  that  Princeton  has  now  a 
new  SHQ  on  the  main  street  of  the  town.  Two  large  win- 
dows facing  the  street  will  soon  be  decorated  with 
monads,  etc' 

12149-1,  Chilliwack,  B.  C. — in  issue  No.  1  of  their  jour- 
nalistic venture,  have  a  very  interesting  quiz  of  12  Ques- 
tions on  'Do  you  know  your  America'?  The  answers  are 
no   cinch. 

12247-3,  Seattle,  Wash. — Public  Speaking  classes  under 
Charles  Gerold  and  Evis  Joberg  are  getting  exceptional  re- 
sults. 'Section  News'  reports  Mrs.  Helena  Bomar,  Grace 
Dexter,  Ted  Applegate,  Carolyn  Newman,  Charles  Hickey, 
and  Dir.  Dr.  Bomar  as  the  Section  battery  of  Authorized 
Speakers-to-be. 

12249-2,  Port  Moody,  B.  C— From  No.  4  of  the  'Coastal 
Bulletin'  we  learn  that  as  the  result  of  a  public  meeting  a 
study  class  was  commenced  at  Whonnock.  Two  communists 
attempted  to  break  up  a  meeting  at  Pitt  Meadows  but  were 
effectively  handled  by  Speaker  Templeman.  Work  is  pro- 
gressing on  some  new  urban  billboards  for  this  locality. 

12349-2,  Nanaimo,  B.  C. — A  census  of  the  amount  of 
available  symbolism  in  this  community  at  present  reveals 
two  gray  cars,  one  urban  billboard,  six  seniors  and  three 
Farads  in   official  dress. 

12449-1,  Port  Alberni,  B.  C— has  taken  over  full  time 
ground  floor  SHQ  on  First  Ave.,  next  to  the  Port  Theatre. 
They  report  that  groups  of  visitors  are  wandering  into 
their  study  classes,  demanding  to  be  signed  up. 

12449-3,  Powell  River,  B.  C. — has  sent  in  their  charter  to 
CHQ  and  the  members  are  ordering  grey  suits,  and  paint 
for  one   car   and  four  boats. 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST,     VANCOUVER,     B.     C.     JULY— 1940 


PAGE    FIFTEEN 


Technocracy  Is  Not  Waiting  for 
George  to  Do  It 

Of  all  the  mottoes  in  the  book,  'Let  George  do  it'  is  the  one  which  seems  so  far  to  have  been  put 
into  actual  practice  more  than  any  other.  It  is  the  golden  rule  of  the  mentally  ossified  and  a  bonanza 
for  all  the  professional  'Georges'  whom  the  sucker  public  periodically  elect  to  offices  all  over  this 
Continent.  Given  the  mandate  to  'do  it',  these  gentry  make  the  most  of  their  opportunities.  Change 
it  slightly  to  'do  them',  which  and  whom  they  proceed  to  do. 

Science  and  Technology  have  created  here  on  North  America  the  world's  first  and  only  high-en- 
ergy civilization.  Higher  rates  of  energy  conversion  mean  more  abundance.  Abundance  destroys 
price  and  value.  With  these  fundamentals  destroyed,  a  Price  System  cannot  continue  to  function 
as  a  mode  of  social  control.  How  many  times  has  Technocracy  pointed  out  these  simple  facts,  and 
how  inescapable  is  the  mass  of  confirmative  evidence  every  day  piling  up  before  our  eyes,  as  the 
old  system  totters  into  its  last  days? 

One  hundred  and  seventy  million  people  on  this  Continent  are  facing  the  greatest  crisis  in  the  his- 
tory of  man,  the  final  outcome  of  which  will  in  all  probability  determine  the  future  of  the  human 
race  itself.  What  will  probably  strike  nearer  home  is  the  fact  that  the  outcome  of  this  crisis  may  well 
determine  whether  you  and  I  as  individuals,  or  those  around  us,  are  to  continue  to  live  out  the  full 
span  of  our  years,  or  perish  in  the  chaos  we  might  have  prevented. 

The  social  mechanism  of  America  is  bigger,  more  complicated,  dynamic  and  delicately  balanced, 
and  operates  faster  than  is  the  case  anywhere  else  on  earth.  For  this  reason,  any  interference  with 
its  continuous  operation  will  result  in  a  crash  of  unprecedented  violence,  from  the  consequences  of 
which  no  one  will  escape.  In  spite  of  this,  when  faced  with  social  upheaval,  the  various  factions  can 
only  ask  us  to  have  faith  in  'George',  'sound  business  principles',  or  mob  violence. 

'George'  is  not  only  incompetent — he  doesn't  care.  He  is  interested  only  in  what  is  good  for  busi- 
ness and  immediately  profitable  to  himself.  No  juggling,  no  principles  of  operation  within  the 
Price  System  can  alter  the  fundamentals  that  are  destroying  the  system.  Mob  violence,  in  such  a 
society  as  ours,  can  propose  and  achieve  only  more  violence,  destruction  and  death. 

In  this  crisis,  the  people  of  America  are  going  to  save  themselves,  for  a  change.  Here  will  be  ap- 
plied an  American  solution  to  an  American  problem;  functional  control  instituted  by  the  people  of 
a  Continent.  Our  present  was  built  up  and  is  kept  in  operation  to-day  by  people  functioning  on 
their  jobs,  guided  by  facts,  and  acting  on  the  principle  of  'do  it  now'.  They  have  and  are  succeeding 
not  because  of,  but  in  spite  of  our  mode  of  social  control.  These  same  functional  people  must  to- 
morrow, guided  by  fact  and  in  a  mass  movement,  usher  in  the  New  America.  To  make  this  possible, 
a  sufficient  number  of  people  must  in  the  meantime  do  the  groundwork  of  organizing  and  educating 
necessary  to  prevent  disastrous  bungling.  This  must  be  done  in  spite  of  ignorance,  incompetence 
and  moronic  indifference.  Every  functional  Technocrat  is  doing  his  part  towards  building  a  civiliza- 
tion worthy  of  the  intelligence  of  man. 

How  about  you? 

Editorial  in  the  Bulletin 

published  by  Sec.  1,  R.  D.  10553. 


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THE    ONLY    MAGAZINE    IN    CANADA    THAT    IS    PREPARING    THE    PEOPLE   OF    THIS 
COUNTRY    FOR    SOCIAL    CHANGE 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 


No.  75 


—STAFF— 

Editor  Donald  Bruce  Business  Manager       H.  W.  Carpenter 

Assistant  Editor  W.  D.  Ellwyn  Circulation  Manager G.  H,  Connor 

Assistant  Editor  ...Dorothy  Fearman  Research  V.  A.  Knudsen 

Assistant  Editor    ...  H.  W.  Carpenter  Production   0.  G.  Lunde 

CONTENTS 

Editorial      3 

The  Communist  Sellout  4 

Oil  from  Tar  Sands  11 

Alternative  Fuel  for  Transport 12 

Alcohol  from  Waste  Wood  20 

Twelve  at  a  Time     22 

I  Am  the  Price  System 24 

Wanted— A  National  Fuel  Policy!  43 

The  War  Between  Plenty  and  Price  44 

Canada   and   Immigration 46 

An  Open  Letter  to  Labor 50 


Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349,  Techno- 
cracy Inc.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies  25  cents.  Twelve  issues  for  $2.50; 
six  issues  for  $1.25.  Bundle  rates  10  to  100,  20  cents  per  copy;  100  copies  or 
more,  19  cents  each.  Continental  Headquarters  of  Technocracy  Inc.  is  at  155 
E.  44th  St.,  New  York  17,  N.  Y.  Send  all  correspondence  and  manuscripts  and 
make  all  money  orders  payable  to  Technocracy  Digest,  625  West  Pender  St., 
Vancouver,  B.  C.  Entered  as  second  class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  Department, 
Ottawa.     Printed  in  Canada. 


FRONT  COVER 

Miner  using  air-pick.  Five  years  of  total  war  have  increased  Canada's  produc- 
tion of  base  metals  to  such  an  extent  that  today  the  Dominion  supplies  the 
United  Nations  with  15  percent  of  their  copper,  16  percent  of  their  lead,  18  per- 
cent of  their  zinc,  95  percent  of  their  nickel,  and  40  percent  of  their  aluminum. 


■       ■ 


I  ''Si". 


■ 

Hi   I 

■ 


The  Communist  Snake  Dance 


IN  this  issue  we  analyze  the 
communist  sellout  on  this  Con- 
tinent. 

The  'party  line'  has  always 
been  shifty,  but  the  current 
gymnastics  of  the  communists 
would  break  the  back  of  even 
the  slitheriest  snake.  They  cover 
up  every  move,  every  twist, 
every  snake  dance  with  that  neo- 
Marxian  dialectic:  the  end  justi- 
fies the  means. 

What  game  are  the  communists 
playing?  The  game  they  have  al- 
ways played  at:  strategy  to 
strengthen  Russia's  position. 
Their  present  compromise  with 
the  status  quo  is  designed  to 
soothe  the  fluttering  hearts  of 
our  big  businessmen  so  that  the 
Soviet  Union  can  obtain  rehabili- 
tation materiel  from  the  'capital- 
ist' countries  after  the  war. 

We  are  not  attempting  to  dis- 
parage this  policy  but  only  point- 
ing out  that  in  this  strategic 
move  to  improve  Russia's  posi- 
tion the  communists  are  selling 
North  America  short.  With  their 
eyes  and  loyalties  focussed  upon 
the  U.S.S.R.,  they  are  fighting  to 
maintain  a  system  of  advantage 
on  this  Continent  instead  of  pre- 
paring the  people  of  North  Am- 
erica for  social  change. 

Social  change  is  a  direct  result 


of  the  advance  of  technology — 
the  application  of  physical 
science  to  the  means  whereby 
we  live.  The  increased  use  of 
power  machinery  in  North  Am- 
erica will  force  us  to  install  a 
new  social  mechanism  regardless 
of  our  economic  theories  or  poli- 
tical doctrines.  The  New  Ameri- 
ca will  be  built  by  North  Ameri- 
cans who  understand  the  tech- 
nological events  which  have 
taken  place  in  this  Continental 
Area  not  by  followers  of  alien 
philosophies  imported  from  Eur- 
ope or  Asia. 

Technocracy  acknowledges  the 
fact  that  Russia's  role  in  this  war 
has  been  magnificent  and  admits 
that  the  technological  progression 
of  the  Soviet  Union  will  have 
great  influence  on  the  postwar 
world.  At  the  same  time  we  must 
make  it  clear  that  North  America 
will  have  to  face  her  own  tech- 
nological rendezvous  with  des- 
tiny no  matter  what  happens  in 
Europe  or  Asia.  Far  in  advance 
of  the  rest  of  the  world  we  must 
solve  the  problem  caused  by  the 
impact  of  technology  and  abund- 
ance upon  the  obsolete  social 
methods  of  hand-tool  scarcity. 

In  the  words  of  Howard  Scott: 
'Communism  is  too  bourgeois  for 
North  America.'       — The  Editor 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


3Ti)£  Communist  Sellout 


3ln  iHIemortam 


ONCE  upon  a  time  the  hopes 
of  many  people  in  both  Ca- 
nada and  the  United  States  rest- 
ed upon  the  communist  philos- 
ophy and  program.  Time  and  the 
march  of  events  have  dealt  them 
staggering  blows  culminating  in 
a  sellout  to  the  status  quo. 

On  January  9,  1944,  the  Com- 
munist Party  of  the  United 
States,  after  a  three-day  session, 
announced  through  its  general 
secretary,  Earl  Browder,  that  it 
had  abandoned  the  last  shreds  of 
its  Marxian  philosophy  and  that 
it  would  go  out  of  business  as  a 
revolutionary  political  party. 
The  session  was  attended  by  28 
national  committeemen  and  200 
other  communist  leaders. 

Pointing  with  optimism  to  the 
capitalist  system  Browder  declar- 
ed: 'Not  only  a  prolonged  world 
peace  without  precedent  in  his- 
tory, but  also  a  flourishing  of  eco- 
nomic relationship  of  cooperation 
and  development  of  economic 
well-being  and  social  reforms  is 
the  prospect  open  for  the  world. 
(Within  the  United  States  he  saw 
the  prospect  of)    .   .   .  successful 


conversion  of  our  industrial 
plant,  enormously  expanded  war 
production  to  normal  operation 
— to  the  benefit  of  labor,  the 
farmer,  and  capital.' 

The  statement  further  added: 
'It  is  beyond  question  that  the 
postwar  reconstruction,  like  pro- 
duction for  the  war  at  present, 
will  be  carried  out  under  the  sys- 
tem of  free  enterprise.lt  is  equal- 
ly evident  that  the  political  issues 
of  this  time  will  be  decided  with- 
in the  form  of  the  two-party 
system  traditional  in  this  coun- 
try-' 

Next  day  at  a  mass  meeting 
in  Madison  Square  Garden, 
Browder  further  elaborated  on 
the  abandonment  of  the  social 
doctrines  of  communism  and 
even  repudiated  such  elementary 
measures  as  nationalization  of 
the  banks,  railroads,  coal,  and 
steel.  To  the  astonishment  and 
chagrin  of  capitalists  and  social- 
ists alike,  he  stated:  'Capitalism 
and  socialism  have  begun  to  find 
the  way  to  peaceful  co-existence 
in  the  same  world.' 

About  the  middle  of  Browder's 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


ni 


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address  the  audience  began  to 
trickle  away,  and  those  with 
keen  ears  reported  that  they 
could  hear  a  dull  rumbling  sound 
caused  by  Marx  and  Engels  re- 
volving in  their  graves.  Janu- 
ary 22,  ironically,  was  the  twen- 
tieth anniversary  of  the  death 
of  Nikolai  Lenin. 

Thus,  not  by  the  choice  of  the 
communists,  but  through  the  re- 
lentless pressure  of  20  years  of 
physical  events,  the  Marxian 
doctrine  of  the  assumption  of 
power  through  the  revolutionary 
action  of  the  proletariat  was 
abandoned  in  America.  (The  re- 
nunciation of  its  basic  philosophy 
by  the  CP  of  America  had  been 
foreshadowed  by  Browder's 
statements  ever  since  he  had 
been  released  from  Atlanta  by 
Presidential  order  on  May  16, 
1942.  He  had  been  urging  busi- 
ness-as-usual for  the  prosecution 
of  the  war  in  Eric  Johnston — 
Chamber  of  Commerce — style 
and  the  communists  had  been 
floundering  in  the  quagmires  of 
compromise  without  a  program.) 

Canadians  will  recall  that  the 
Communist  Party  of  Canada  died 
under  strikingly  similar  circum- 
stances. It  will  be  remembered 
that  the  CP  of  Canada  was  de- 
clared illegal  on  June  4,  1940, 
and  that  a  number  of  its  leaders 
were  interned  or  went  into  hid- 
ing to  escape  arrest.  In  the  latter 


part  of  1942  Tim  Buck,  the  party 
secretary,  suddenly  reappeared 
and  went  on  a  lecture  tour  in 
which  he  renounced  the  commu- 
nist program  and  supported  the 
conduct  of  the  war  by  private 
enterprise  at  a  profit  in  much 
the  same  words  as  used  later  by 
Browder. 

At  Vancouver  he  declared  that 
corporations  should  be  entitled 
to  4  percent  of  gross  profits  in 
the  war.  He  deplored  the  fact 
there  had  been  strikes,  and  he 
advocated  nothing  more  than 
support  of  the  Mackenzie  King 
war  policies. 

In  July  of  1943  he  appeared 
again  on  the  public  platform  and 
was  praised  by  the  daily  press 
for  his  'moderation.'  He  predict- 
ed that  there  would  be  a  Domi- 
nion election  within  a  year,  and 
announced  that  the  Government 
would  permit  them  to  organize 
a  new  political  party  although 
the  ban  on  the  old  party  would 
still  remain.  'We  are  attempting 
to  organize  a  new  party  on  a 
basis  that  will  place  the  main 
emphasis  on  the  parliamentary 
field,'  he  said,  and  later  stated 
that:  'It  is  possible,  even  without 
socialism,  to  have  well-fed,  well- 
clothed,  and  healthy  citizens  by 
efficiently  utilizing  capitalism.' 

They  then  formed  themselves 
into  a  'petite  bourgoise'  liberal 
group  of  party  politicians  (called 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


the  Labor  Progressive  Party)  in 
support  of  the  status  quo.  They 
have  dropped  all  pretense  of  radi- 
calism and  have  adopted  a  pro- 
gram designed  only  to  split  the 
opposition  vote  of  social  protest. 
This  resumption  of  operations  by 
Tim  Buck  and  the  communists  is 
the  clearest  cut  case  of  the  sell- 
out of  a  radical  organization  in 
the  history  of  this  Continent.  As 
Technocracy  predicted,  the  poli- 
tical bourbons  and  the  commu- 
nists are  now  wallowing  in  the 
mud  of  the  last  ditch  together! 

The  naive  reappearance  of 
Buck  while  the  party  was  under 
ban —  it  still  is — pointed  the  fing- 
er at  a  personal  agreement  be- 
tween the  communists  and  the 
Minister  of  Justice.  This  was  re- 
vealed as  a  fact  by  the  Minister 
of  Justice  who  stated  on  Febru- 
ary 22,  1943,  (Hansard,  page  652) 
that  they  had  been  released  be- 
cause: '  .  .  .  they  said  they  wanted 


to  help  in  our  war  effort  and  be- 
cause they  individually  signed 
undertakings  that  they  would  .  .  . 
not  participate  in  any  propaganda 
or  other  activities  of  the  com- 
munist party  in  Canada  .  .  .  ' 

Whether  or  not  Browder  sign- 
ed any  agreement  on  his  release 
from  Atlanta  is  immaterial,  for 
Jthe  subsequent  actions  of  the 
communists  were  predetermined 
by  events  beyond  their  control. 
The  fact  is  that  both  the  CP  of 
Canada  and  the  CP  of  U.  S.  have 
disbanded  and  dropped  the  last 
vestigial  remnants  of  the  Marx- 
ian doctrine  that  social  change 
could  be  instituted  by  a  revolt  of 
the  proletariat  and  the  assump- 
tion of  power  by  the  dictatorship 
of  the  proletariat  and  that  social 
change  could  be  instituted  any- 
where in  the  world  by  organizing 
communist  parties  in  various 
countries  to  seize  political  power 
in  those  countries. 


ftequiettat  tn  $ace 


THE  solemn  and  unshakeable 
belief  of  communists  and 
capitalists  alike  has  been  and  is 
that  the  revolution  of  1917  in 
Russia  and  the  subsequent  social 
change  were  the  products  of  the 
philosophical  doctrines  of  Karl 
Marx,    Frederick    Engels,    Lenin, 


and  the  other  Bolsheviks. 

It  was  pointed  out  by  the  Tech- 
nical Alliance  and  has  been  re- 
peated consistently  by  Technoc- 
racy since  then  that  this  belief 
is  not  founded  on  fact.  The 
communist  doctrine  was  the  doc- 
trine of  civil  war  led  by  a  mili- 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


On 


■    BBS 

*\  -WKk 


tant  minority  propagandizing  the 
masses  to  believe  in  the  over- 
throw of  the  government  and  the 
installation  of  the  dictatorship  of 
the  proletariat.  Political  power 
may  be  overthrown  and  assumed 
by  a  coup  d'etat,  usurpation,  or 
revolt,  but  one  or  all  methods 
does  not  make  social  change 
axiomatic. 

Assumption  of  power  is  one 
thing  and  social  change  is  an- 
other. In  Russia  the  revolution 
was  produced,  not  by  the  indoc- 
trination of  the  masses  nor  by  the 
militant  leadership  of  the  minor- 
ity Bolsheviks,  but  by  a  physical 
collapse  of  the  national  structure 
through  a  change  in  scalar  quan- 
tities which  introduced  an  order 
of  magnitude  of  operations  great- 
er than  the  structure  could  with- 
stand. 

This  change  was  caused  pri- 
marily by  the  attempted  mobi- 
lization of  12,000,000  men  into 
the  Czarist  armies  in  an  agrarian 
economy  wherein  96  percent  of 
the  people  were  peasants  on  the 
soil.  The  defeat  of  the  Czar's  ill- 
equipped  armies  and  the  internal 
collapse  of  transportation,  agri- 
culture, and  manufacturing  pro- 
duced a  collapse  of  the  regime 
which  could  have  occurred 
whether  or  not  there  had  been 
a  revolutionary  doctrine  held  by 
a  small  minority. 

The  Bolsheviks  were  one  of  the 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


smallest  of  numerous  political 
parties.  They  did  not  expect  or 
want  the  revolution  to  take  place 
when  it  did.  They  did  not  want 
to  assume  power  and  only  ex- 
pected to  hold  it  a  short  time 
when  they  did.  'If  we  last  10 
days  we  will  make  history,'  said 
Lenin. 

It  was  only  the  chaotic  physi- 
cal conditions  and  the  degener- 
acy of  the  regime  that  enabled 
the  Bolsheviks  to  seize  and  re- 
tain power.  While  Lenin  preach- 
ed the  Marxian  doctrines  as 
leader  of  the  Bolshevik  Party, 
in  action,  his  instinctive  sense  of 
timing  as  a  political  opportunist 
led  him  to  commit  every  Marx- 
ian heresy  and  thus,  in  spite 
of  his  philosophical  beliefs,  he 
was  able  to  seize  the  opportuni- 
ties thrust  upon  his  party. 

The  Communist  Party  emerged 
from  the  chaos  as  the  official 
party  of  the  U.S.S.R.  and  it  pro- 
mulgated the  doctrine  of  the 
Marxian  assumption  of  power 
on  a  world  wide  basis,  and  cre- 
dence was  given  to  this  belief  be- 
cause of  the  belief  in  their  suc- 
cess which,  in  reality,  was  ach- 
ieved only  through  a  combina- 
tion of  fortuitous  circumstances. 

They  had  merely  made  another 
transfer  of  title  from  one  estate 
to  another  estate  with  no  change 
in  the  mechanics  of  area  opera- 
tion.   Russia  could  have  retained 


in  succeeding  years  the  entire 
philosophical  doctrine  of  com- 
munism and  remained  a  primi- 
tive agrarian  economy.  India 
and  China  could  overthrow  their 
present  regimes  and  they  would 
remain  essentially  as    they    are. 

In  Russia,  however,  another 
factor  was  introduced — the  de- 
velopment of  an  area  technology. 
It  is  an  important  fact  to  note 
that  it  was  not  until  1932  that  the 
Russians  became  sufficiently  dis- 
entangled from  their  political 
preoccupation  to  really  attend  to 
their  technology.  It  was  not  un- 
til 1934  that  it  began  to  get  under 
way  on  any  scale.  Seventeen 
years!  Then  social  change  began 
in  Russia. 

Nevertheless  the  communist 
leaders  of  Russia  continued  to 
believe  in  the  assumption  of 
power  theory  and  the  Communist 
International  was  formed  to  fo- 
ment revolution  in  other  coun- 
tries and  in  this  way  produce 
social  change.  'Workers  of  the 
world  unite!  You  have  nothing 
to  lose  but  your  chains!' 

One  division  of  the  communists 
under  Trotsky  believed  that  the 
world  revolution  should  come 
first.  Others  under  Stalin  be- 
lieved that  it  should  be  develop- 
ed in  Russia  first,  but  all  of 
them  did  believe,  at  least  until 
recently,  in  the  world  revolution. 

Although  Stalin's  chief  concern 


was  the  development  of  the 
Soviet  Union,  the  Communist  In- 
ternational was  maintained.  It 
was  useful  as  a  counter-irritant 
in  the  body  politic  of  the 
'capitalist'  countries  and  as  a  po- 
tential bargaining  point  for  fut- 
ure possible  contingencies.  Al- 
though the  communist  parties  in 
U.  S.  and  Canada  and  other 
countries  were  a  constant  source 
of  expense  and  trouble  to  the 
Soviet  Union,  this  was  a  strate- 
gically sound  action  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  Soviet    Union. 

The  communist  parties  of  U.  S. 
and  Canada  lived  on  borrowed 
time.  They  were  mere  corks 
bobbing  around  on  the  stream  of 
international  diplomacy  and  poli- 
tics. Founded  on  an  ideological 
fallacy  in  the  first  place,  they 
were  foreign  bodies  on  this  Con- 
tinent and  were  kept  alive  by 
foreign  funds  and  alien  ideologi- 
cal assistance.  They  had  no  roots 
in  the  soil  of  America. 

On  May  15,  1943,  Russia  dis- 
solved the  Communist  Interna- 
tional. In  doing  so,  she  struck 
a  cheap  bargain.  Western  Rus- 
sia has  been  devastated  by  the 
greatest  and  most  frightful  war 
in  history.  Russia  will  survive 
victoriously  because  of  its  tech- 
nology, but  it  will  need  assist- 
ance for  years  to  come  in  the 
work  of  reconstruction — machine 
tools,        locomotives,        turbines, 


8 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■  mm 


SctV         H9HflHri 


■til 

■ 


m 


equipment  of  all  sorts.  Russia 
is  willing  and  able  to  pay  for  this 
but  must  have  someone  willing 
to  sell.  The  entrepreneurs  of  the 
western  democracies  were  wil- 
ling to  sell  to  the  devil,  but  first 
they  had  to  have  their  fears  as- 
suaged with  regard  to  the  'red 
bogey'  of  the  International.  To 
ensure  supplies  after  the  war,  it 
would  help  Russia  to  offer  a  quid 
pro  quo.  What  could  be  better 
than  the  Communist  Internation- 
al! So  at  one  stroke  Russia  dis- 
solved the  International  and  rid 
herself  of  a  liability  and  at  the 
same  time  soothed  the  fluttering 
hearts  of  the  business  entrepre- 
neurs! (That  this  strategy  is 
paying  dividends  was  disclosed 
by  recent  press  despatches  which 
stated  that  the  Soviet  Union  has 
placed  a  five  billion  dollar  order 
in  the  U.  S.  for  postwar  goods 
and  is  negotiating  with  the  Ca- 
nadian Government  with  regard 
to  the  possibility  of  acquiring  hy- 
droelectric generating  equipment 
and   minehead   machinery.) 

For  the  CP  of  America  this  was 
curtains.  Bounced  around  in 
their  own  vacuum  by  the  futility 
of  their  program  and  soundly 
slapped  by  the  long  arm  of  the 
law,  they  decided  that  the  game 
was  not  worth  the  candle  and 
they  surrendered  their  birthright 
for  a  mess  of  pottage.  They  have 
sold  their  so-called  revolutionary 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


philosophy  for  safety  and  a  smug 
political  existence. 

The  immediate  cause  of  the 
communist  debacle  in  U.S.  and 
Canada  was  the  dissolution  of  the 
Comintern  which  struck  them 
when  they  were  without  a  policy 
due  to  their  amazing  acrobatics 
between  the  Munich  sellout,  the 
Russo-German  pact,  and  the  Ger- 
man attack  on  Russia.  The  Cana- 
dian communists  merely  gave  up 
sooner  because  of  greater  domes- 
tic pressure. 

The  basic  cause  of  the  sellout, 
however,  was  the  doctrine  on 
which  these  parties  were  found- 
ed, namely,  that  social  change 
could  be  produced  by  mass  over- 
throw of  government  and  as- 
sumption of  power  by  the  com- 
munist dictatorship  of  the  pro- 
letariat. 

Technocracy  is  the  antithesis 
of  this  doctrine.  No  phase  of 
Technocracy  has  any  point  of 
similarity  to  such  a  doctrine. 

Technocracy's  program  is  bas- 
ed on  the  fact  that  social  change 
does  occur  and  is  a  fact  where 
there  is  a  sufficient  change  in 
scalar  quantities  of  area  opera- 
tion through  the  increased  con- 
version of  energy  per  capita  per 
unit  of  time,  and  that  when  there 
has  been  a  sufficient  change  in 
the  scalar  quantities  of  area  op- 
eration, that  area  must  introduce 
a  change  in  the  mechanics  of  its 


social  control.  But  this  cannot 
be  achieved  by  the  assumption 
of  power  by  another  political 
party  and  has  no  relationship  to 
the  assumption  of  power.  The 
corollary  of  this  is  also  correct, 
namely,  that  areas  where  there 
has  been  a  sufficient  change  in 
the  scalar  quantities,  the  status 
quo  cannot  be  maintained  by  a 
fascist  coup  d'etat  or  by  the  pro- 
pagation of  a  belief  in  any  doc- 
trine maintaining  the  status  quo. 

The  Communist  Parties  of  the 
U.  S.  and  Canada  have  numbered 
among  their  ranks  social  thinkers 
and  able  and  sincere  workers 
who  have  strived  according  to 
their  beliefs  to  change  this   sys- 


tem of  disadvantage.  Technoc- 
racy regrets  that  such  loyalty  and 
effort  should  have  been  lost  to  a 
mistaken  concept.  Foreign  ideo- 
logies will  not  prosper  on  this 
Continent. 

The  parade  of  the  lame,  the 
halt,  the  dumb,  and  the  blind  is 
leaving  its  philosphical  tomb- 
stones by  the  wayside.  Today  on- 
ly one  social  movement  exists  on 
this  Continent — Technocracy.  It 
owes  no  allegiance  to  any  alien 
social  ideology;  it  has  no  foreign 
connections;  it  receives  no  for- 
eign money.  It  is  North  Ameri- 
can all  the  way  through.  It 
stands  alone. 


Communistic  Contortions 


ir  IN  STRIKING  contrast  to  the  present  pronouncements  of  the  com- 
munists that  'capitalism  will  carry  on'  and  'we  can  improve  conditions 
by  efficiently  utilizing  capitalism'  is  the  following  statement  taken 
from  the  January  20,  1934,  issue  of  The  Worker,  organ  of  the  CP  of 
Canada  from  1922  to  1936:  'The  Communist  must  prove  to  the  masses 
that  all  the  ills  of  capitalism  are  incurable,  therefore  the  Communist, 
while  defending  in  every  way  the  demands  of  the  toilers,  must  untir- 
ingly disclose  to  the  masses  who  are  suffering  from  starvation  and  ex- 
ploitation the  whole  truth — that  their  catastrophic  conditions  will  grow 
worse  and  worse  under  the  blows  of  the  continuous  offensive  of  capi- 
talism until  the  toilers  succeed  in  uniting  their  forces  for  a  counter- 
blow and  crushing  the  bourgeois  rule.' 

■^r  WHEN  the  Alaska  Highway  project  was  first  publicized  (before 
the  German  attack  on  Russia),  Canadian  communists  strongly  con- 
demned the  idea  of  letting  the  Americans  into  Canada  to  build  the 
road,  claiming  that  the  whole  plan  was  merely  an  opening  wedge  for 
the  U.S.  to  begin  taking  over  this  country.  At  the  same  time  American 
communists  were  crying  out  that  the  project  was  a  scheme  of  British 
capitalists  to  have  a  road  built  free  to  bolster  the  decaying  British 
Empire.  This  is  the  highway  that  has  recently  been  lauded  by  the  B.C. 
provincial  organizer  for  the  LPP  (the  communists  in  new  clothes)  as 
a  'great  achievement.'  It's  just  one  highway! 


10 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


■ 

■  I 


■ 


■ 
•> 


'+ 


■ 


Oil  from  Tar  Sands 


EDMONTON,  Aug.  3— En- 
gineers of  the  Alberta  Re- 
search Council  at  work  in  the 
laboratory  here  in  search  of  a 
satisfactory  commercial  method 
to  extract  oil-rich  bitumen  from 
the  Athabasca  tar  sands  believe 
their  long  search  has  been  suc- 
cessful and  that  the  application 
of  the  process  will  open  the  door 
to  oil  wealth  never  seen  before. 

It's  a  long  story  they  tell  here 
about  the  tar  sands  along  the 
Athabasca  River  250  miles 
north-east  of  here.  Some  say  the 
sands  contain  70  percent  of  the 
world's  oil   supplies. 

They  say  that  there  are  about 
1000  square  miles  where  the  tar 
sands  lie  in  unknown  depth.  Per- 
haps there  are  30,000  square 
miles.  No  one  knows  with  cer- 
tainty for  no  one  has  had  time 
to  examine  all  the  area. 

The  tar  sands  were  seen  and 
marvelled  at  150  years  ago  when 
the  fur  traders  passed.  For  more 
than  20  years  the  province  has 
been  studying  their  development 
and  the  Dominion  government 
has  been  interested  even  longer. 

The  Dominion  government  is 
conducting  tests  with  a  plant  at 
the  tar  sands  area  now.  The  Al- 
berta   government   has   appropri- 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


ated  $250,000  for  a  provincial 
project  and  Hon.  W.  A.  Fallow, 
provincial  works  minister,  says 
he  is  anxious  to  get  ahead  with 
full-scale  tests  of  the  Alberta 
methods. 

Dr.  K.  A.  Clark,  research  en- 
gineer for  the  Alberta  council 
and  professor  of  metallurgy  at 
the  University  of  Alberta,  can 
look  back  over  20  years  of  ex- 
periments and  studies  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  tar  sands. 

He  had  a  major  part  in  devis- 
ing the  extraction  machine  which 
he  demonstrates  at  the  labora- 
tories here  and  which  he  con- 
siders the  most  efficient  method. 

The  first  problem,  he  says,  al- 
ways has  been  the  extraction  of 
the  bitumen  from  fine  sand.  With 
the  apparatus  developed  on  slim 
budgets  over  the  years,  the  bitu- 
men bubbles  to  the  surface  of  hot 
water  after  passing  through  an 
intricate  arrangement  of  pipes 
which  are  part  of  the  extraction 
process. 

The  bitumen  skimmed  off  is 
almost  pure,  but  not  quite.  Some 
traces  of  sand  remain,  but  they 
can  be  removed  by  further  re- 
fining, and  gasoline  and  other 
products  then   obtained. 

— Canadian  Press 


11 


Bfl     I'M 


Alternative  Fuel  for  Transport 


THE  extent  to  which  modern 
civilization  is  dependent  on 
communication  and  transport 
was  scarcely  realized  by  the  av- 
erage man  until,  with  the  advent 
of  war,  his  mobility  became  sev- 
erely restricted.  The  Industrial 
Revolution  of  the  early  nine- 
teenth century  was  supplement- 
ed by  the  Communication  Revo- 
lution which  is  still  proceeding, 
the  twentieth  century  having 
been  marked  particularly  by  a 
rapid  increase  in  the  substitution 
of  liquid  for  solid  fuel  in  rail, 
road  and  marine  transport.  For 
aircraft,  there  is  no  substitute 
for  liquid  fuels  in  sight  at  the 
present  time,  though  numerous 
attempts  have  been  made  in  the 
past  to  provide  alternative  meth- 
ods of  propulsion.  We  have, 
therefore,  been  consuming  our 
oil  reserves  at  an  enormous  rate 
and,  whereas  our  coal  reserves 
are  sufficient  to  last  for  some 
4000  to  6000  years  at  the  pre-war 
rate  of  consumption,  the  petrol- 
eum situation  is  much  less  en- 
couraging.    No  authoritative  es- 


By  Professor  E.  A.  Allcut,  Dept.  of 
Mechanical  Engineering,  University 
of  Toronto.  Reprinted  from  the 
March  1944  issue  of  MANUFAC- 
TURING AND  INDUSTRIAL  EN- 
GINEERING. 


12 


timates  of  our  oil  reserves  are 
available,  but  numerous  state- 
ments have  been  made  indicating 
that,  even  if  the  rate  of  consump- 
tion should  remain  stationary, 
these  reserves  will  suffice  for  a 
few  years  only,  the  period  to  be 
reckoned  in  decades  rather  than 
centuries. 

For  instance,  Mr.  Ickes,  U.  S. 
Secretary  of  the  Interior,  points 
out  that,  whereas  the  ratio  of 
1942  coal  output  to  reserves  in 
the  United  States  was  1/3830, 
the  figure  for  natural  gas  was 
1/32  and  for  oil  1/14.  Also,  that 
within  recent  years  the  additions 
to  proved  reserves  for  petroleum 
have  been  only  one-third  of  the 
annual  consumption.  Mr.  J.  G. 
Bennett,  Director  of  the  British 
Coal  Utilization  Research  Asso- 
ciation, states  that  the  proved  re- 
serves of  the  United  States  and 
Russia  are  sufficient  to  last  only 
for  twelve  years  and,  further, 
that  the  oil  fields  to  be  discover- 
ed will  probably  become  progres- 
sively less  and  less  rich,  as  the 
richer  oil  fields  have  already 
been  worked.  From  a  geological 
standpoint,  allowing  for  the  fact 
that  about  15  percent  of  the 
world's   oil   resources   are   prob- 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■'■■>'■ 


I  ,;-*•■ 


■■ 


_ 


BMHHhhISI 


ably  not  recoverable,  he  esti- 
mates that  the  life  of  these  re- 
sources is  probably  about  sixty 
to  one  hundred  years,  depending 
on  the  rate  of  consumption. 

In  1936,  the  United  States  Pet- 
roleum Conservation  Board  pre- 
dicted the  Exhaustion  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Oil  Fields  within  a 
few  years,  many  of  them  being 
already  dry.  The  221  new  pools 
discovered  in  the  United  States 
in  1937  had  estimated  reserves 
of  nearly  four  times  those  of  the 
348  new  pools  found  in  1942. 

Adding  to  these  factors  the  in- 
creased cost  of  deeper  drilling 
and  longer  transport,  and  the 
ever  rising  cost  of  labour,  it  fol- 
lows that  alternative  fuels  are 
becoming  progressively  more  at- 
tractive. 

These  estimates,  moreover,  ap- 
ply to  the  present  rate  of  con- 
sumption, but  when  predictions 
are  made  regarding  the  increased 
use  of  air  transport  after  the 
Kvar,  and  the  employment  of 
larger  planes  and  more  powerful 
engines,  nobody  seems  to  ask 
where  the  extra  fuel  is  to  come 
from.  A  plane  with  four  2500 
H.P.  engines  will  consume  about 
2V2  tons  of  liquid  fuel  and  about 
200-250  lbs.  of  lubricating  oil 
every  hour.  If  there  are  a  large 
number  of  planes  in  use,  and 
they  run  for  long  periods,  the 
resulting  increase    in    petroleum 


consumption  is  likely  to  be  very 
serious.  This  factor,  together 
with  the  rapidly  decreasing  a- 
vailability  of  petroleum,  may 
make  it  necessary  to  reserve  li- 
quid fuels,  mostly  for  those  ser- 
vices such  as  aircraft,  automo- 
biles, etc.,  where  no  reasonable 
alternatives  are  available,  and  to 
rely  on  other  fuels  for  heavy  land 
transport,  tractors  and  marine 
work. 

What  are  those  alternatives? 
The  supply  of  electrical  energy 
from  water  power  is  only  suffi- 
cient, at  present,  to  meet  about 
2  per  cent  of  the  world's  energy 
required  and,  if  all  the  available 
water  power  were  harnessed,  it 
would  not  suffice  for  more  than 
15  to  30  per  cent  of  the  demand. 
Further,  it  is  impossible,  at  pre- 
sent, to  store  any  considerable 
amount  of  electrical  energy  in  a 
battery  of  reasonable  size  and 
weight  and,  consequently,  the 
only  way  of  using  it  for  transport 
purposes  (save  in  street  cars  and 
the  like)  is  by  electrolysing  water 
and  thus  producing  hydrogen  and 
oxygen  which  may  be  burned  in 
engines.  This  process  requires 
an  abundant  supply  of  cheap 
power  and  it  is  also  subject  to  the 
difficulty  of  transporting  useful 
quantities  of  gaseous  fuels  in 
containers  of  reasonable'  size  and 
weight.  Stored  gases  have  been 
widely    employed    for    vehicular 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


13 


propulsion,  no  less  than  107,000 
such  vehicles  operating  in  Eur- 
ope (excluding  Russia)  in  1941. 
Gas  bags,  containing  coal  gas  at 
about  atmospheric  pressure,  were 
employed  in  Great  Britain  during 
World  War  I,  but  they  were 
bulky,  leaky,  top-heavy,  were  af- 
fected by  wind  and  snow  and  had 
a  small  radius  of  action  (about 
20  miles  per  filling).  Bottles 
containing  compressed  gases  are 
heavy  and  are  difficult  to  accom- 
modate in  the  average  chassis, 
the  weight  being  about  100  lbs. 
for  the  equivalent  of  from  1  to  4 
gallons  of  gasoline  in  the  cases 
of  methane  and  coal  gas.  More- 
over, the  storage  pressures  are 
high,  being  about  3000  to  5000  lb. 
per  square  inch,  requiring  elab- 
orate and  expensive  gas  com- 
pressors and  a  well-organized  re- 
filling service.  Propane  and  bu- 
tane, which  can  be  stored  as 
liquids  at  70-140  lb.  per  square 
inch,  are  more  suitable  for  this 
purpose  and  enable  the  equiva- 
lent of  about  15  gallons  of  gaso- 
line to  be  stored  per  100  lb.  of 
weight.  The  quantities  of  these 
fuels  that  are  available  for  trans- 
port purposes,  however,  are  com- 
paratively small.  Nevertheless, 
Lang  states  that  the  consumption 
of  liquefied  gas  in  the  United 
States  increased  from  223,000 
gallons  in  1922  to  555  million  gal- 
lons  in   1942.     Methane    can    be 


produced  either  from  natural  gas 
fields  or  from  sewage  disposal 
plants,  but  the  former  are  neither 
numerous  nor  prolific,  and  the 
latter  only  operate  effectively 
when  the  sludge-activation  tanks 
can  be  kept  at  75-85  degrees  F., 
a  difficult  and  expensive  matter 
in  cold  climates. 

Acetylene,  produced  from  cal- 
cium carbide,  has  also  been  em- 
ployed in  Europe  to  a  limited  ex- 
tent, but  abundant  and  cheap 
power  is  required  to  produce  the 
carbide  and,  as  acetylene  has  a 
very  high  flame  speed,  it  knocks 
badly  when  burned  in  the  engine 
cylinder.  Also,  there  is  a  con- 
siderable fire  and  explosion  risk. 
The  knock  tendency  may  be  re- 
duced by  mixing  the  fuel  with 
alcohol  or  ammonia,  but  the  oth- 
er difficulties  still  remain.  A 
pound  of  calcium  carbide  pro- 
duces about  5%  cubic  feet  of 
acetylene,  or  about  8200  B.T.U. 
Thus,  the  equivalent  of  one  gal- 
lon of  gasoline  would  be  produc- 
ed from  18-19  lbs.  of  calcium  car- 
bide. 

Hydrogen,  produced  by  the 
electrolysis  of  water,  may  be 
burned  satisfactorily  in  internal 
combustion  engines  which  are 
suitably  designed  for  the  pur- 
pose. If  the  gas  is  produced  at 
atmospheric  pressure,  multi-stage 
compressors  are  necessary  to 
compress  it  into  bottles,  but  cells 


14 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


BS8BH 

mam 
■  B 


■ 

RSI 


Bii 

Sox 


have  been  designed  to  produce 
the  gas  at  high  pressures  so  that 
it  can  be  fed  directly  into  the 
bottles.  In  either  case  the  ob- 
jections, previously  noted,  to  the 
use  of  stored  gases  apply  and,  in 
addition,  there  are  the  high  cost 
of  the  process,  probable  modifi- 
cations to  the  engine  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  providing  large  quan- 
tities of  electric  power  at  low 
cost. 

Alcohols  produced  from  wood 
products  and  from  growing  vege- 
table matter,  have  been  used  in 
other  parts  of  the  world  for  many 
years.  In  1939,  over  200  million 
gallons  of  alcohol  fuel  were  used 
in  Europe,  and  Australia  is  about 
to  construct  four  factories  for 
this  purpose  to  produce  12  mil- 
lion gallons  per  annum  from  sur- 
plus wheat.  Alcohol  is  produced 
extensively  in  Finland  from 
waste  sulphate  liquor  and  a  simi- 
lar project  is  now  operating  in 
Canada.  Some  part  of  the  Cana- 
dian wheat  surplus  could  also  be 
employed  in  this  way,  but  the 
principal  difficulty  is  that  the 
cost  of  producing  alcohols  is  from 
three  to  four  times  the  cost  of 
gasoline  at  the  refinery.  Alcohol 
is  generally  used  as  a  blend  with 
gasoline  and  the  mixture  may  be 
employed  in  an  ordinary  gasoline 
engine  up  to  an  alcohol  content 
of  10  to  20  percent.  Tests  made 
recently    by    Iowa    State    College 


confirm  previous  findings,  name- 
ly, that  the  performance  of  the 
alcohol-gasoline  mixture,  within 
the  above  limits,  was  not  very 
different  from  that  of  leaded 
gasoline  and  that  this  fuel  had 
no  deleterious  effects  on  the  en- 
gine or  lubricating  oil.  A  30  per 
cent  mixture  was  reported  on 
less  favourably.  With  a  20  per 
cent  mixture,  the  higher  cost  of 
the  alcohol  would  not  be  a  matter 
of  great  importance  and  the  con- 
sumption of  gasoline  would  be 
reduced  correspondingly.  Before 
the  Second  World  War  the  ad- 
mixture of  home-produced  alco- 
hol with  imported  gasoline  was 
compulsory  in  several  countries 
to  conserve  exchange  and  to  re- 
duce the  transportation  of  fuel 
in  wartime.  In  a  peacetime  eco- 
nomy the  use  of  vegetable  mat- 
ter as  food  must  be  balanced 
against  its  advantages  as  a  fuel. 
It  is  evident  that  the  substi- 
tutes described  above  can  influ- 
ence the  fuel  situation  only  to  a 
minor  degree  and  that,  for  any 
large-scale  programme,  recourse 
must  be  had  to  the  old  stand-by 
fuels — coal  and  wood.  Some 
liquid  fuel  (benzol)  is  already 
produced  from  coal  by  distilla- 
tion in  the  gas  and  coke  indus- 
tries. This  fuel  has  a  high  anti- 
knock rating  and  has  been  used 
in  gasoline  engines  for  many 
years     but,     from     a     Canadian 


BB 
■i 


9r 


MXtii 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


15 


JJjF 

■fl 


■ 


«■ 


I    :<-' 


WK 


4B 


PUSRM 


> 


stand-point,  it  suffers  from  the 
disadvantages  that  the  quantity 
available  is  comparatively  small 
and  its  freezing  point  is  high 
(40  degrees  F.).  If  low  tempera- 
ture coking  plants  are  established 
in  Canada  for  producing  house- 
hold fuels  after  the  war,  it  may 
well  happen  that  the  quantity  of 
benzol  available  will  be  increased 
considerably.  Shortage  of  an- 
thracite may  necessitate  the  er- 
ection of  such  plants.  Another 
possibility  is  the  conversion  of 
coal  into  liquid  fuel  by  hydro- 
generation.  There  are  two  types 
of  process,  namely,  the  Bergius 
and  Fischer-Tropsch  methods 
but,  in  either  case,  the  initial  cost 
of  the  plant  is  heavy  and,  in  nor- 
mal times,  these  processes  can 
only  be  carried  on  with  govern- 
ment assistance  Five  tons  of  coal 
are  required  to  produce  one  ton 
of  liquid  fuel  and  the  capital  cost 
is  approximately  $250  per  ton  of 
annual  output.  Nevertheless,  by 
this  means  Germany  produced 
over  35  million  barrels  of  liquid 
fuel  in  1940  and  this  was  possibly 
about  one  third  of  their  liquid 
fuel  production.  It  has  probab- 
ly been  an  important  factor  in 
keeping  Germany  in  the  war. 

The  other  alternative  is  the 
production  of  gas  while  the  ve- 
hicle is  running.  The  apparatus 
(gas  producer  or  gasogene)  is  a 
furnace  somewhat  similar  to  that 


used  for  heating  houses,  but 
smaller  in  size.  This  apparatus 
may  be  mounted  on  the  front, 
side  or  back  of  the  chassis  or  it 
may  be  towed  on  a  trailer.  Air 
(and  sometimes  water  vapour)  is 
drawn  through  the  fire  by  the 
suction  of  the  engine,  so  that  gas 
is  produced  automatically  at  a 
rate  suitable  for  the  speed  and 
loading  of  the  vehicle.  The  gas 
obtained  contains  about  30  per- 
cent of  carbon  monoxide  and 
from  5  to  15  per  cent  of  hydro- 
gen, depending  on  circumstances 
and  this  gas  must  be  cooled  and 
cleaned  before  it  enters  the  en- 
gine. It  should  be  noted  that 
there  is  no  difficulty  whatever 
in  designing  a  gas  producer  that 
will  work  but  the  cooling  and 
cleaning  apparatus  is  a  different 
matter.  The  latter  must  operate 
with  small  resistance  to  the  pas- 
sage of  gas,  must  cool  and  clean 
the  gas  effectively  and  must  not 
become  clogged  in  a  short  time. 
As  a  rule,  the  most  efficient 
cleaners  offer  excessive  resist- 
ance to  the  gas  after  a  compara- 
tively short  period  of  running. 
The  gas  is  poor  in  quality,  having 
about  one  quarter  the  heating 
value  of  coal  gas  and,  for  this 
reason,  even  under  ideal  condi- 
tions, it  will  not  produce  more 
than  70  per  cent  of  the  power 
generated  by  the  engine  when 
running     on     gasoline.        Claims 


H6 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


Hr 


■&m. 


-»*X 


W 


^m 


&, 


m  1 


-.VC.J- '■<.::< 


which  exceed  this  figure  should 
be  questioned,  as  the  usual  aver- 
age is  50  to  60  per  cent.  The 
power  may  be  increased,  either 
by  super-charging  the  engine 
(using  the  methods  employed  in 
aircraft)  or  by  increasing  the 
compression  ratio,  or  both.  The 
spark  advance  must  also  be  in- 
creased, because  the  gas  burns 
comparatively  slowly.  Many 
fuels  have  been  used,  including 
anthracite,  coke,  charcoal,  wood, 
peat,  sawdust,  etc.,  but  generally 
the  easiest  fuel  to  burn  is  char- 
coal as  it  is  easy  to  ignite,  pro- 
duces a  relatively  clean  gas,  and 
any  dust  that  gets  through  is  not 
very  abrasive  in  the  engine  cy- 
linder. Wood  producers  are  lar- 
ger and  heavier,  are  slower  to 
start  and  produce  tars  and  acids 
which  are  difficult  to  destroy  or 
remove.  The  extra  moisture  in 
the  gas  from  wood  is  also  liable 
to  give  trouble  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  cost  and  complication 
of  charcoal  kilns  are  avoided. 
Another  probable  source  of  fuel 
is  coke,  which  may  be  produced 
from  coal  either  by  a  high  or  low 
temperature  distillation  process. 
At  present,  this  is  frequently  a 
by-product  of  the  gas  making  in- 
dustry but,  in  future,  the  posi- 
tion may  possibly  be  reversed, 
the  coke  becoming  the  main  pro- 
duct for  heating  and  power  pur- 
poses, and  the  gas  more  or  less 


a  by-product.  Coal  is  a  complex 
substance  and  at  present  it  is  not 
usually  employed  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage. It  is  probable  that,  in 
the  postwar  economy,  Canadian 
coals  will  have  to  be  analysed  in- 
to their  various  components  so 
that  each  constituent  may  be  em- 
ployed most  advantageously. 

The  cross-draft  type  of  pro- 
ducer is  generally  the  most  con- 
venient, as  it  can  be  started  from 
cold  in  less  than  two  minutes  and 
the  fire  will  remain  alight  for  a 
reasonable  time  after  the  vehicle 
has  stopped.  The  actual  time 
varies  with  the  condition  and 
size  of  the  fire  and  the  kind  of 
fuel  used.  Fuels  containing  con- 
siderable amounts  of  volatile 
matter  must  be  gasified  in  the 
down-draught  type  of  producer, 
which  usually  takes  from  10  to  20 
minutes  to  start.  The  distance 
travelled  on  one  charge  of  fuel 
varies  in  different  cases  from  50 
to  150  miles,  but  re-fueling  en 
route  is  a  comparatively  simple 
matter.  The  present  gasoline 
stations  could  be  used  (as  they 
are  in  Australia)  for  re-fueling 
purposes. 

The  weight  of  gas  producer 
plants  varies  from  300  to  680 
pounds  and  their  cost  varies  (at 
present)  from  $300  to  $800,  de- 
pending on  the  extent  to  which 
mass  production  methods  are  em- 
ployed in  their  manufacture.     It 


SEPTEMBER.  1944 


17 


83}  g£  M$F 


.....     3 


3BkS 


should  be  noted  that  light  con- 
struction is  not  always  desirable, 
as  thin  plates  have  a  short  life 
and  lack  of  rigidity  in  the  joints 
gives  rise  to  air  leakage  into  the 
producer  which  causes  over- 
heating and  gives  a  poor  gas. 
For  war  emergency  purposes  it 
is  also  necessary  that  the  use  of 
special  materials,  such  as  alloy 
steels  and  refractory  linings  be 
avoided  as  far  as  possible,  and 
that  special  shapes  produced  by 
stamping  and  forging  be  replaced 
by  simple  plate  work  and  weld- 
ing. In  this  way,  the  plants  re- 
quired could  be  made  in  small 
shops  in  various  parts  of  Canada, 
with  a  maximum  of  skilled  la- 
bour, and  the  material  might  be 
delivered  to  the  makers  in  the 
simplest  manner,  possibly  being 
sent  out  from  a  central  plant  al- 
ready cut  to  the  required  shapes 
and  sizes. 

Although  it  is  known  that 
many  cars  and  light  vehicles 
have  been  equipped  with  gas  pro- 
ducers, it  is  felt  that  their  first 
application  should  be  to  fleets  of 
heavy  vehicles,  where  one  or 
more  men  may  be  charged  with 
the  responsibility  of  their  sys- 
tematic cleaning  and  servicing. 
If  large  numbers  of  cars  were 
equipped  with  gas  producers,  the 
problems  of  servicing,  repair  and 
enforcement  of  safety  regulations 
(fire  and  poisoning)     would     be 


18 


practically  insoluble  but,  by 
starting  with  fleets  of  vehicles, 
experience  will  gradually  reach 
the  repair  garages  and  the  gen- 
eral public. 

The  emergency  producer 
adopted  by  the  British  Govern- 
ment has  the  whole  plant  mount- 
ed on  a  trailer  which  is  towed 
behind  the  vehicle  concerned. 
This  arrangement  has  the  advant- 
age that  the  entire  plant  may  be 
fabricated  as  a  complete  unit  and 
that  no  modification  of  chassis  or 
body  work  is  required.  Also,  if 
the  plant  needs  cleaning  or  re- 
pair, it  can  be  uncoupled  from 
the  vehicle  and  another  unit  sub- 
stituted in  a  few  minutes.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  trailer  is  more 
difficult  to  manoeuvre  in  traffic 
and  its  construction  requires 
more  steel  and  rubber,  which  are 
difficult  to  get  in  war  time,  and 
therefore  the  producer  is  usually 
mounted  on  the  chassis.  It  is  de- 
sirable that  the  position  be  as 
central  as  possible  to  avoid  exces- 
sive stresses  in  the  front  or  rear 
springs  and  extra  wear  on  the 
tires  when  turning  corners. 

For  some  time  past,  a  commit- 
tee of  the  National  Research 
Council  has  been  investigating 
the  possible  application  of  pro- 
ducer gas  to  motor  vehicles  and 
has  made  an  extensive  series  of 
practical  tests  of  various  gas  pro- 
ducers  of   Canadian   and  Europ- 

TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


3     ' 

HBBS 

HBjl    Kj 

H 
RH  HI 


',   - 


■  '  I 


■ 


■ 


t  '■ 


ean  designs,  so  that  the  Canadian 
Government  may  be  in  a  position 
to  take  prompt  action  if  and 
when  the  necessity  arises.  It  has 
been  found  that  designs  which 
have  proven  satisfactory  in  other 
countries  are  not  necessarily  suit- 
able for  Canadian  conditions.  The 
development  of  a  satisfactory  gas 


producer  plant  for  general  use 
is  a  long-term  proposition,  de- 
manding considerable  experience 
and  suitable  testing  facilities,  so 
that  facts  can  be  substituted  for 
opinions.  There  has  been  far  too 
much  'ballyhoo'  on  this  subject 
in  the  newspapers  and  elsewhere. 
— Professor  E.  A.   Allcut 


Postwar  Planners  Please  Note! 


if  IN  THE  middle  20's,  less  than  2  percent  of  (U.S.)  total  underground 
production  of  bituminous  (coal)  was  handled  by  mechanical  loading 
methods  as  compared  with  31  percent  15  years  later.  Progress  has 
been  rapid  since  the  inception  of  the  war  production  program,  with 
loading  machines  advancing  from  1,573  in  1939  to  2,235  in  1942.  In 
the  latter  year,  more  than  46  percent  of  the  total  underground  output 
was  loaded  mechanically.  Improvements  have  also  been  made  in  dril- 
ling equipment,  in  mechanical  cutting,  conveying  facilities,  and  mech- 
anical cleansing  plants;  and  electrical  equipment  for  use  in  strip 
mining  is  being  more  widely  adopted.  — The  Index,  Spring  Issue 

if  IF  WE  have  mass  unemployment  we  may  not  be  able  to  carry  out 
the  proposals  in  my  report.  We  may  give  people  money,  but  there  won't 
be  goods  for  them  and  thus  there  will  be  poverty.  I  don't  know  how 
we  shall  continue  productive  employment  after  the  war.  When  people 
say  we  cannot  abolish  unemployment,  I  say  we  have  abolished  it  twice 
in  my  lifetime — during  the  last  war  and  in  this  war.  I  simply  won't 
believe  it  is  impossible  to  abolish  mass  unemployment,  yet  I  do  not 
know  how  it  is  to  be  done  and  I  do  not  even  know  whether  anyone 
else  does.  — Sir  William  Beveridge 

■^r  TWO  YEARS  after  war  ends,  Government  expenditures  will  have 
dropped  from  $90  billion  to  $25  billion  a  year — the  greatest  and  swift- 
est disappearance  of  markets  in  history.  ...  A  year  after  the  war, 
nearly  20  million  war  workers  and  servicemen  will  look  for  employ- 
ment. — Professor  Sumner  H.  Slichter 

if  AMERICANS  should  realize  that  we  are  more  frightened  of  an 
American  depression  after  the  war  than  we  are  of  a  British  depression. 
We  want  to  be  sure  that  America  will  not  allow  another  gigantic  de- 
pression. — Geoffrey  Crowther,  editor  of  London  Economist 

if  I  AM  GLOOMY  about  the  future  of  the  w®rld  because  I  do,  not  see 
how  the  free-enterprise  system  in  America  can  lead  to  full  employment 
.  .  .  (There  is)  .  .  .  little  hope  of  avoiding  a  U.S.  postwar  depression 
because  the  philosophy  of  the  American  business  men  today  seems  to 
be  exactly  what  it  was  in  1929.  — Professor  Harold  Laski 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


19 


Alcohol  from  Waste  Wood 


NEW  YORK,  Aug.  7.— Peace- 
time production  of  synthetic 
rubber  and  other  products  need- 
ing a  cheap  source  of  industrial 
alcohol  may  depend  on  utiliza- 
tion of  wastes  from  wood  and 
paper  mills,  in  the  opinion 
of  Dr.  J.A.  Hall,  chief  biochemist 
of  the  United  States  forest  ser- 
vice. 

'If  the  synthetic  rubber  indus- 
try demands  alcohol  at  anything 
approaching  the  rate  now  re- 
quired, blackstrap  molasses  can- 
not possibly  produce  the  neces- 
sary volume  of  alcohol,'  he  says. 

He  predicts  that  alcohol,  at  10 
cents  a  gallon  or  less,  will  be- 
come available  for  motor  fuel 
and  for  other  uses  precluded  by 
its  pre-war  price  and  that  with 
such  a  development  wood  would 
be  'a  very  important  continuing 
source.' 

In  Europe  production  of  sugar, 
alcohol,  cattle  feed  and  other 
products  from  wood  was  on  a 
fairly  large  scale  before  the  war, 
but  the  development  attracted 
little  attention  in  the  United 
States  until  the  synthetic  rubber 
and  munitions  programs  taxed 
the  capacity  of  the  distilling  in- 
dustry. 

From  experiments  conducted 
in    government    laboratories    by 


the  West  Virginia  Pulp  &  Paper 
Co.,  at  Mechanics ville,  N.Y.,  and 
the  Crown  Willamette  Paper  Co., 
at  West  Lynn,  Ore.,  improve- 
ments on  European  methods 
have  been  worked  out  which 
have  resulted  in  three  large 
scale  production  projects. 

These  are  the  $2,247,000  plant 
of  the  Willamette  Valley  Wood 
Chemical  Co.  of  Springfield, 
Ore.,  for  use  of  combined  waste 
from  five  wood  manufacturers 
and  estimated  to  produce  4,100,- 
000  gallons  of  alcohol  annually;  a 
million  dollar  plant  at  the  Puget 
Sound  Pulp  &  Fiber  Co.,  at  Bel- 
lingham,  Wash.;  and  a  proposed 
$1,300,000  plant  utilizing  sulphite 
waste  liquid  at  the  Soundview 
Pulp  Co.,  Everett,  Wash. 

Wood  and  paper  industry 
sources  say  these  developments 
are  being  watched  closely  by 
large  industries. 

These  sources  say  that  produc- 
tion of  industrial  alcohol  at  a  low 
cost  from  sawdust  will  depend  on 
a  profitable  mass  use  of  lignin 
which  will  remain  as  a  by-pro- 
duct. 

Dr.  Hall  says  that  from  each 
ton  of  dry  wood  used  for  alcohol 
there  will  remain  between  500 
and  600  pounds  of  lignin  powder. 


20 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


■ 


■ 


ir*    h    I  -  ~     V   ?*? 


This  material  has  been  used 
successfully  in  the  plastics  in- 
dustry, but  he  doubts  if  this  will 
provide  a  large  enough  outlet. 

Lignin,  however,  can  be  con- 
verted into  varied  chemicals  in- 
cluding mixed  phenols  from 
which  thermosetting  glues  for 
plywoods  are  made,  and  into 
methyl  alcohol  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  formaldehyde. 

— Associated  Press 

POWELL  RIVER,  Aug.  3.— 
With  a  view  to  the  possible  es- 
tablishment of  a  valuable  by- 
products industry  in  utilization 
of  sulphite  liquor  effluent  from 
its  pulp  and  paper  plant  here, 
the  Powell  River  Company  is 
undertaking  a  survey  of  such 
potentialities  as  that  particular 
field  offers  as  part  of  the  Com- 
pany's postwar  development 
plans. 

Dr.  M.  M.  Rosten,  who  former- 
ly owned  and  operated  the  Kut- 
no  Chemical  Works  in  Poland, 
and  who  recently  supervised  es- 
tablishment of  an  alcohol  reduc- 
tion plant  at  Thorold  for  the  On- 
tario Paper  Co.,  has  been  con- 
ducting the  survey.  Working  on 
the  project  with  Dr.  Rosten  are 
M.  H.  Jones  and  W.  K.  Voss, 
operating  officials  of  the  new 
Thorold  plant. 

In  a  report  on  his  findings,  ap- 
pearing  in   the    current    issue   of 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


Pacific  Pulp  and  Paper  Industry 
Magazine,  Dr.  Rosten  declared 
himself  as  'favorably  impressed' 
with  local  possibilities.  From  a 
production  standpoint  he  feels 
certain  that  Powell  River  has  an 
abundant  supply  of  the  raw  ma- 
terial for  manufacture  of  indus- 
trial alcohol. 

Almost  200  tons  of  sulphite 
pulp  are  produced  daily  at  Pow- 
ell River,  representing  about  50 
percent  recovery  from  wood,  and 
about  150  tons  of  lignin  are  now 
going  to  waste.  Only  the  sugar 
content  of  this  basic  material  can 
be  effectively  used  in  the  manu- 
facture of  alcohol. 

The  setup  would  lend  itself  to 
the  manufacture  of  several  by- 
products, most  important  being 
dry  ice  or  C02.  It  is  estimated 
that  four  tons  of  dry  ice  or  12 
tons  of  C02  could  be  produced 
here  daily. 

The  Thorold  alcohol  plant  has 
a  ready  outlet  for  its  production 
at  the  synthetic  rubber  plant  of 
Polymer  Corpn.,  the  Canadian 
government-financed  enterprise 
at  Sarnia,  Ont. 

No  such  market  exists  on  the 
coast  at  the  present  time  for  in- 
dustrial alcohol  although  the 
production  of  gasoline  is  one  of 
the  interesting  possibilities  in 
connection  with  such  an  industry 
in  British  Columbia. 

— Vancouver  Sun 


21 


1H 


106      EFdB 


Twelve  at  a  Time 


WHEN  you  start  talking  in 
terms  of  twelve  at  a  time 
in  riveting,  you're  getting  up  in- 
to statistics.  And  that's  the  lan- 
guage of  the  multiple  hydraulic 
riveters  in  the  Final  Assembly 
building. 

Take,  for  example,  a  spar  for 
the  outer  panel  of  the  B-24.  It's 
about  24  feet  long,  weighs  about 
60  pounds  and  contains  approxi- 
mately 3,000  rivets.  In  an  hour 
and  five  minutes  the  multiple  hy- 
draulic riveter,  with  one  operator 
who  removes  stay  bolts,  lays  out 
holes  in  the  gussets  and  so  forth, 
can  complete  the  entire  riveting 
job.  It  would  have  taken  four 
good  riveters  two  hours  apiece. 
Figure  that  up  in  man  hours  sav- 
ed on  the  eight  various-sized 
riveters  in  operation  in  the  fac- 
tory. You'll  come  out  with  the 
amazing  total  of  some  15,000 
manhours  per  month  .  .  .  the 
work  of  about  75  people. 

Then  figure  it  up  in  terms  of 
the  increased  production  pos- 
sible. But  don't  quote  the  figures 
.  .  .  for  reasons  of  military  securi- 
ty. 


This  article  on  multiple  riveting  at 
the  Ryan  Aircraft  Plant  is  reprinted 
from  the  June  1944  issue  of  COM- 
MERCIAL   AVIATION. 


Now  add  in  the  human  ele- 
ment. The  chance  for  slips  in 
the  riveting  must  be  caught, 
taken  out  and  reworked.  The 
multiple  riveter  is  the  same  yes- 
terday, today  and  tomorrow.  It's 
never  bothered  with  headaches, 
lack  of  sleep,  personal  worries  or 
any  of  the  multitude  of  things 
that  combine  to  cause  human 
errors.  It  pulls  the  parts  together 
tightly  and  rivets  the  twelve 
2/16"  flat  head  rivets  simultan- 
eously and  with  precision  sur- 
passing the  most  expert  artisan. 
The  rejects  are  practically  non- 
existent and,  when  they  do  oc- 
cur, are  usually  the  result  of  a 
faulty  rivet. 

Because  of  the  nature  of  the 
assembly  stringers,  they  can  be 
riveted  only  one  at  a  time.  This 
is  done  on  a  small  single-riveter 
that  is  just  as  precise  as  the  lar- 
ger model.  Aileron  spars,  hand- 
led in  the  same  manner  as  the 
larger  spars  are  also  riveted  on 
the  smaller  machines.  As  are 
also  the  bulkheads  in  the  sub  as- 
sembly department.  The  upper 
surface  of  the  outer  panel  is 
handled  in  the  larger  machines 
which  have  a  capacity  of  ten 
3/16"  flush  rivets  each  time  the 
machine  operates. 


22 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


K 


:•  ■  • 


r^ 


■ 

ESH 

■ 

•    -yv. 
&2 


But  these  machines  at  Ryan 
aren't  just  something  that  'hap- 
pened' one  fine  day.  They're  the 
result  of  far-sighted  planning  on 
methods  to  combat  the  shortage 
of  labor  and  intensive  investiga- 
tion on  the  part  of  Factory  Man- 
ager G.  E.  Barton,  E.  A.  Moore, 
Production  Superintendent,  and 
J.  E.  Cooper,  Assistant  to  the 
Production  Superintendent.  They 
are  also  the  result  of  a  lot  of 
headaches  and  some  real  hard 
digging  by  D.  H.  Palmer,  Plant 
Engineer,  in  an  effort  to  properly 
design  an  overhead  system  cap- 
able of  handling  the  fixtures. 


Material  first  began  to  flow 
through  the  multiple  riveters  last 
November.  At  that  time  only 
men  were  used  as  operators  to 
catch  any  'bugs'  that  might  de- 
velop. Now  after  five  months  of 
operation,  the  'bugs'  have  been 
'exterminated'  and  women  are 
extracting  a  maximum  of  produc- 
tion from  these  work  demons. 

This  wholesale  riveting  at  Ry- 
an is  believed  to  be  unique  on 
the  West  Coast.  At  least  this 
plant  was  the  first  to  use  it  ex- 
tensively, although  other  com- 
panies are  gradually  investigat- 
ing and  adopting  it. 


/  Am  an  Opinion! 

■fa  IN  MY  OPINION  I  am  the  sole  judge  by  which  this  universe  is 
ruled.  My  outstanding  qualities  are  ego,  conceit,  ignorance,  credibility, 
obstinacy,  and  a  firm  belief  in  my  judgment  of  something  I  know 
absolutely  nothing  about. 

I  am  expressed  by  kings  and  knaves,  millionaires  and  beggars, 
queens  and  washwomen.  I  have  ruled  empires  and  countries,  palaces 
and  hovels,  ending  by  upsetting  them  all  and  starting  afresh.  Gallons 
of  blood  have  been  spilt  over  me.  Political  blunders  are  my  coup  d'etat 
because,  in  that  way,  I  am  sure  to  be  reborn  perpetually. 

I  am  opinions  of  the  State,  the  Law,  Big  Business,  and  the  Individual 
I  am  99  percent  unfounded  and  1  percent  a  lucky  guess.  I  can  be  ex- 
pressed freely,  knowing  that  there  will  be  a  negligible  amount  of  in- 
vestigation beyond  the  surface. 

The  more  I  am  repeated  the  stronger  I  grow,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
I  may  be  wrong.  Oh,  yes,  I  am  wrong  when  I  am  right,  and  right  when 
I  am  wrong,  and  can  be,  by  careful  use,  both  right  and  wrong  at  the 
same  time — so  what! 

I  am  the  mainspring  of  propaganda  and  advertising;  I  am  faith, 
hope,  and  charity,  a  snake,  a  dope,  a  parity.  I  am  interest,  value,  and 
debt.  I  am  cruelty,  crucifixion,  and  inquisition.  I  retard  progress  and 
keep  man  down  because,  in  his  opinion,  he  is  entitled  to  his  opinion. 

The  only  men  who  don't  use  me  are  the  pokey  old  scientists,,  but  I 
fool  them  by  taking  command  of  their  work  the  moment  it  is  complete. 

I  hate  facts  but  do  not  fear  them  as  I  have  the  magic  faculty  of  dis- 
appearing into  thin  air,  and  cannot  be  found  when  a  fact  appears.  In 
this  way  I  never  lose  my  social  prestige.  "Roger  Elgood 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


23 


I  Am  the  Price  System 


Everybody  knows  the  Price  System.  We  all  have  dealings  with  it  every 
day  of  our  lives,  from  birth  to  death,  and  there  is  no  escaping  it  this 
side  of  the  River  Styx.  It  dictates  nearly  everything  we  do  and  con- 
trols almost  everything  we  use  except  the  air  we  breathe.  The  only 
reason  it  can't  interfere  there,  is  because  air  is  abundant.  Here  is  its 
autobiography,  written  by  the  old  miser  itself. 


I  HAVE  existed  since  the  begin- 
ning of  social  life  yet  few  men 
recognize  my  fundamental  char- 
acteristics. With  the  exception 
of  some  minor  civilizations  here 
and  there,  I  am  the  only  type  of 
Social  System  that  has  ever  ex- 
isted. I  was  conceived  in  Human 
Toil  and  Scarcity  and  dedicated 
to  Profit  and  Waste. 

Before  recorded  history  began 
I  laid  down  the  foundation  of  my 
system  in  the  early  tribal  life  of 
mankind.  In  the  Ancient  World 
they  called  me  Chattel  Slavery. 
The  glory  of  Greece  and  the  pow- 
er of  Rome  was  rooted  firmly  in 
Human  Toil  and  Scarcity.  Dur- 
ing that  long  night  of  the  human 
mind  called  the  Dark  Ages  I 
was  known  as  Feudalism  and 
Serfdom.  In  the  modern  world 
I  am  called  Capitalism  and  they 
even  entitle  me  Democracy  in 
certain  nations.  Of  all  the  names 
I  have  borne,  the  most  misleading 


Reprinted  from  the  March-April  is- 
sue of  the  GREAT  LAKES  TECH- 
NOCRAT by  kind  permission  of  the 
editor. 


of  all  is  that  given  to  me  in  Rus- 
sia. There  they  call  me  Com- 
munism. 

My  name  has  been  changed 
many  times  but  essentially  I  have 
remained  the  same  in  all  coun- 
tries and  times,  except  that  my 
techniques   have    improved. 

I  am  any  social  system  what- 
soever that  effects  its  distribution 
of  goods  and  services  by  means 
of  any  system  of  trade  or  com- 
merce based  on  commodity  val- 
uation and  employing  any  form 
of  debt  tokens  or  money. 

For  uncounted  generations  I 
have  held  sway  in  every  Nation 
over  the  bodies  and  minds  of 
men.  Today  I  still  exist  all  over 
the  world  in  various  stages  of 
development,  controlling  the  pro- 
duction and  exchange  of  goods 
and  services  and  all  the  means 
whereby  men  live. 

I  am  the  group  expression  of 
man's  common  urge  to  live  and 
prosper  at  the  expense  of  his  en- 
vironment, even  including  the 
human  components  thereof.  I  am 
the  resulting  social  system  under 


24 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


SSSmBca 

■H 

•W73       HB 

I   <    *(<•*'■.   ,  ■ 


,i   -J,**- 


iv,>:"v 


...  ■ 


whose  regimentation  every  man 
is  forced  to  give  as  little  to  so- 
ciety and  his  fellow  man  as  he 
can  get  away  with  and  take  back 
as  much  as  he  can  get. 

I  am  the  law  of  the  jungle  (eat 
or  be  eaten;  kill  or  be  killed), 
projected  by  mankind  into  insti- 
tutional forms.  I  am  the  lowest 
common  denominator  of  the  abi- 
lity, intelligence  and  necessities 
of  mankind. 

Mood  of  Confession 

Early  in  social  life  I  discovered 
that  values  could  be  determined 
by  the  force  of  human  desire  and 
that  desire  itself  was  determined 
by  Scarcity.  Value  and  Scarcity 
are  therefore  the  cornerstones  of 
my  system. 

I  dressed  them  up  so  that  men 
would  not  recognize  them  and 
baptized  them  Supply  and  De- 
mand. In  this  guise  they  have 
befuddled  men  for  ages.  I  had 
my  economists  tell  them  that 
Supply  and  Demand  were  natur- 
al laws  and  dictated  Prices.  This 
took  the  moral  blame  off  my  sy- 
stem and  created  the  impression 
that  nothing  could  be  done  about 
it. 

Supply  and  Demand  has  been 
a  useful  myth  to  my  System.  Be- 
hind its  cover  I  have  always  re- 
stricted the  supply  and  made  it 
a  practice  never  to  allow  demand 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


a  free  avenue  of  expression. 
Actually,  there  is  no  ceiling  to 
supply  except  ability  to  produce 
and  no  limit  to  demand  except 
ability  to  consume.  But  I  can- 
not afford  to  let  it  become  gener- 
ally known  that  there  are  no 
natural  laws  except  physical 
laws. 

What  was  the  first  discovery  that 
savage  man  made  after  he  came 
together  in  social  life?  It  was  the 
elementary  one,  still  valid,  that 
other  men  placed  a  premium  on 
scarce  articles.  This  was  the  be- 
ginning of  'Chiselocracy.' 

After  this  original  discovery,  I 
found  it  necessary  to  have  more 
tools  to  work  with.  So  I  invented 
a  promise  and  called  it  I  Promise 
to  Pay.  This  has  turned  out  to 
be  a  neat  device.  I  Promise  to 
Pay  can  be  neither  seen,  tasted, 
heard,  felt  or  measured.  I  con- 
jured it  out  of  nothing  and  plant- 
ed it  in  the  minds  of  men.  It  took 
root  and  grew  there  with  lush 
abundance. 

I  Promise  to  Pay  was  the  first 
of  a  long  list  of  operating  devices 
I  invented  to  facilitate  the  func- 
tioning of  my  system.  They 
were  all  conjured  out  of  nothing, 
with  no  basis  in  physical  laws, 
yet  they  have  become  the  Rules 
of  the  Game  under  which  my 
System  operates. 


25 


»       "•  .     ■ 


K$£r 


riiafflfi . 


Ss&! 


WE* 


m 


JlHlS'  Ml  7 ffl 

beS  KaffflK    ft 


Next,  so  that  men  would  not 
recognize  the  non-substantial  na- 
ture of  my  Promise,  I  fashioned 
real  tokens  to  represent  it.  These 
I  called  Money.  Since  Money  is 
the  token  of  a  promise,  it  is  a 
Debt  Token.  It  has  no  ultimate 
reality  in  itself  but  only  in  what 
it  represents,  which  has  no  real- 
ity at  all.  Money  is  the  promise 
of  I  Promise  to  Pay,  when,  as 
and  if.  It  is  the  Nothing  you  get 
for  Something  before  you  can  get 
Anything. 

It  seemed  necessary  to  camou- 
flage the  real  nature  of  Money, 
so  I  gave  it  another  name  called 
Medium  of  Exchange.  This  has 
a  respectable  sound  and  besides 
that  it  is  actually  how  Money 
functions.  It  is  not,  however,  a 
medium  of  distribution  as  some 
of  my  apologists  assert.  My  sy- 
stem, The  Price  System,  is  not 
interested  in  distribution.  It 
functions  solely  to  exchange 
goods  and  services  on  the  basis 
of  scarcity  determined  values  for 
a  profit,  and  any  distribution  that 
results  is  an  unavoidable  by-pro- 
duct. 

It  became  apparent  at  once 
that  Money  functioning  as  Med- 
ium of  Exchange  possessed  cer- 
tain characteristics  useful  to  my 
system.  It  is  negotiable,  trans- 
ferable, interest-bearing  and  can 
be  saved.  All  this  allows  it  to 
be   traded    in,     stolen,     given   or 


gambled  away;  and  since  it  is  not 
a  measure  of  anything  real  and 
fixed,  it  can  be  devalued,  reval- 
ued and  manipulated  in  count- 
less ways. 

This  variability  is  necessary  to 
the  existence  of  my  system. 
There  must  always  be  a  free  flow 
of  Medium  of  Exchange,  else  the 
arteries  of  commerce  will  dry 
up.  In  addition  there  must  also 
always  be  an  ever  present  natur- 
al or  artifically  maintained  scar- 
city, else  values  will  collapse  and 
there  will  be  no  basis  for  ex- 
change. 

I  Have  Much  to  Confess 

The  way  my  System  is  organ- 
ized it  is  compulsory  for  the  in- 
dividual to  accumulate  as  many 
Debt  Tokens  as  possible  or  else 
become  a  public  charge.  There 
are  three  major  compulsions  in- 
volved. First,  because  of  the  ne- 
gotiability of  Medium  of  Ex- 
change, it  constitutes  a  debt 
claim  against  my  entire  system, 
or  society  at  large,  as  my  Debt 
Merchants  say.  Second,  also  be- 
cause of  its  negotiability,  Money 
can  be  exchanged  for  any  goods 
and  services  available.  Third, 
again  because  of  its  negotiability, 
it  constitutes  a  potential  working 
force  which  can  be  hired  out  at. 
stipulated  rates  of  increment 
stated  in  terms  of  itself,  thus  in- 
creasing in  size  and  power.  When 
used   this   way,   Medium   of   Ex- 


I 
I 


26 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■i 


WWM 


^■1     DUO 

ifliflHtiai 


H 


■»Vi 


change  is  called  Capital.  Once 
an  accumulation  of  Debt  Tokens 
has  reached  the  proportions  of 
Capital,  it  becomes  compulsory 
to  keep  it  out  working  all  the 
time.  Its  tendency  is  to  shrink 
back  into  the  nothing  from  which 
it  came.  It  must  either  increase 
or  die. 

If  all  the  gold  at  Ft.  Knox  were 
dumped  in  the  ocean  would  pro- 
duction stop?  If  not  what  is  it 
based  on,  mercenary  motives  or 
social  necessity? 

The  purpose  involved  in  my 
entire  system  is  for  the  indivi- 
dual to  acquire  as  many  Debt 
Tokens  as  possible  and  thus  ac- 
quire a  larger  lien  on  I  Promise 
to  Pay.  One  must  pile  up  debt 
claims  against  his  fellowmen 
faster  than  they  can  pile  them  up 
against  him.  One  must  be  either 
a  horse  or  a  rider,  a  chiseler  or 
a  sucker.  It's  dog  eat  dog  all  the 
way  through. 

During  my  checkered  career  I 
have  performed  such  a  complex- 
ity of  manipulations  with  Medi- 
um of  Exchange  that  dozens  of 
schools  of  economists  have  arisen 
around  my  antics.  Each  one 
claims  his  theory  of  Money  is 
correct.  That  is  why  economics 
can  be  correctly  defined  as  the 
study  of  the  pathology  of  debt. 

Previous  to  the  invention  of 
Medium  of  Exchange,  my  activi- 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


ties  had  been  restricted  to  direct 
barter  and  outright  theft.  I  have 
never  really  outgrown  these 
time-tested  methods  of  lightening 
the  suckers'  burden.  I  merely 
graduated  into  improved  tech- 
niques. In  these  more  refined, 
modern  days,  whenever  a  situa- 
tion calls  for  primitive  methods, 
I  always  seize  the  opportunity  to 
keep  in  practice.  There's  nothing 
like  having  something  solid  to 
fall  back  upon,  should  a  rainy 
day  come. 

I  Begin  to  Feel  My  Oats 

The  device  of  Capital  allowed 
me  to  put  into  effect  Delayed 
Exchanges.  This  opened  up  a 
whole  new  world  for  expansion. 
I  brought  Capital  and  Delayed 
Exchanges  together  in  natural 
wedlock  and  they  begat  Debt, 
Interest,  Profits  and  Waste. 
These  are  the  four  horsemen  of 
the  apocalypse  of  my  system. 

Debt  grew  up  like  Milo,  get- 
ting bigger  all  the  time.  His  little 
brother  Interest  accompanied 
him  wherever  he  went  and  al- 
ways managed  to  pick  up  a  little 
something  on  the  way  back. 
Every  so  often  Profits  got  lost 
among  Delayed  Actions  but  Debt 
and  Interest  always  went  out  and 
brought  him  back.  Waste  oper- 
ated everywhere  expediting  the 
turnover  of  Delayed  Exchanges 
and  thus     helped     to     maintain 


27 


wm 


ftmEn 


•■'■' 


'^EB 


Scarcity. 


'Waste  not,  want  not'  has  been 
translated  by  business  to  mean, 
'Waste  not,  profit  not.'  No  busi- 
ness ever  reaches  great  success 
without  well  planned  waste.  It's 
indispensable  to  the  Price  Sys- 
tem. 

Once  when  Delayed  Exchanges 
seemed  to  be  turning  over  too 
slowly,  I  brought  Waste  and  Pro- 
fits together  in  illicit  relations. 
They  begat  Cheap  Substitutes 
and  Shoddy  Goods.  Delayed  Ex- 
changes turned  over  much  faster 
after  that;  and  Scarcity  became 
more  pronounced. 

But,  alas!  Debt  turned  out  to 
be  allergic  to  a  natural  enemy 
called  Paid  in  Full.  Every  once 
in  a  while  this  pest  turned  up 
and  I  was  forced  to  create  New 
Debt.  After  some  experimenta- 
tion, I  devised  an  improved  type 
of  Debt  called  Long  Term  Debt. 
He  resisted  Paid  in  Full  much 
better. 

So  with  Scarcity,  Values,  I 
Promise  to  Pay,  Medium  of  Ex- 
change, Capital,  Delayed  Ex- 
changes, Interest,  Long  Term 
Debt,  Profits  and  Waste,  I  was  al- 
most all  set  for  a  successful  and 
endless  career. 

Jungle  Law  Comes  to  Jungle 

There  remained  two  things  to 

do.     I  had  to  have  an  institution- 


alized social  structure,  superim- 
posed upon  these  operating  char- 
acteristics so  as  to  consolidate  my 
gains  and  maintain  law  and  ord- 
er. Also  it  was  necessary  to 
camouflage  it  so  that  men  would 
take  it  for  everything  else  but 
what  it  actually  is.  How  success- 
ful this  effort  has  been  only  a 
thermodynamic  interpretation  of 
history  will  reveal.  Radicals,  li- 
berals, moralists  and  humani- 
tarians have  tinkered  with  my 
superimposed  social  structure  for 
ages  without  altering  or  affecting 
its  basic  operating  characteristics 
one  bit. 

To  tell  the  truth,  I  did  not  de- 
sign these  social  institutions  as 
one  job.  They  grew  up  naturally 
over  a  period  of  time  as  a  normal 
outgrowth  and  corollary  of  the 
basic  system  of  trade  and  com- 
merce underneath. 

In  the  very  beginning  of  social 
life  men  had  come  together  in 
groups  for  the  purpose  of  multi- 
plying their  strength  against  the 
opposing  forces  of  their  environ- 
ment and  thus  obtaining  indivi- 
dual security  more  effectively. 
This  is  the  original  reason  for  the 
formation  of  tribes  and  commu- 
nities of  people.  One  might  put 
it  this  way:  The  paramount  con- 
cern of  the  social  state  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  general  welfare 
of  the  human  components  in- 
volved. 


28 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


i^B^H 


■ 


,"*  '■ 

■  1 

*RSW '  ^*  *-•■ ' 

MP    WfP 

*  •*'<'■ 

UK 

H  90  MS 

There  are  two  kinds  of  laws  in 
society,  physical  laws  and  legis- 
lative laws.  Physical  laws  can't 
be  violated,  they  operate  willy 
nilly.  Legislative  laws  are  passed 
because  it  is  known  in  advance 
that  they  are  being,  or  will  be, 
violated.  U.  S.  Supreme  Court 
Justice  Benjamin  Cardoza  once 
said:  'The  purpose  of  the  law  is 
to  preserve  the  ancestral  smell.' 

How  I  subverted  social  life 
from  its  paramount  purpose  is  a 
story  in  itself.  It  runs  concur- 
rently with  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  my  operating  tools  for 
production  and  exchange  of 
goods  and  services.  For  the 
super-imposed  social  institutions 
are  but  a  reflection  of  the  funda- 
mental means  whereby  men  live. 

Briefly,  those  who  learned  how 
to  chisel  according  to  the  oppor- 
tunities provided  within  the 
framework  of  my  system  became 
a  ruling  oligarchy.  All  men,  of 
course,  could  not  do  so  but  only 
a  minority.  For,  where  there  are 
exploiters,  there  must  be  some 
one  and  something  for  them  to 
exploit.  In  any  event,  while 
Natural  Scarcity  prevailed, 
which  was  the  case  for  many 
thousands  of  years  and  is  still  so 
in  most  of  the  world,  there  never 
was  enough  to  go  around  and 
provide  every  one  with  what  he 
needed.     So,   if  that  part  of  the 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


physical  wealth  which  went  to 
the  ruling  oligarchs  had  been 
divided  among  the  great  mass  of 
people,  it  wouldn't  have  made 
much   difference. 

All  throughout  history  my  sys- 
tem has  been  operated  and  con- 
trolled by  three  oligarchies. 
First,  came  the  oligarchy  of  or- 
ganized Government  to  maintain 
my  law  and  order.  Next  came 
the  oligarchy  of  the  priesthood 
and  medicine  men  who  preached 
submission  to  my  system  and  re- 
ward after  death.  Last  came  the 
oligarchy  of  the  entrepreneurs 
who  operated  my  system  of  trade 
and  commerce.  These  three 
have  alternately  either  control- 
led separately  or  worked  togeth- 
er in  all  countries.  I  have  nam- 
ed them  Ecclesiasticism,  Private 
Enterprise  and  Political  State. 

Their  role  today  is  the  same 
as  it  has  always  been.  Organ- 
ized government  is  necessary  un- 
der any  social  system.  Since  the 
first  concern  of  any  government 
is  to  maintain  itself,  mine  is  no 
different  from  what  any  other 
form  of  government  would  be  in 
that  respect.  It  protects  its  own, 
i.e.,  the  Price  System  of  produc- 
tion and  exchange. 

Private  Enterprise  functions  to 
exploit  the  natural  resources  of 
the  land  and  the  human  compon- 
ents thereof,  for  all  the  profit 
the  traffic  will  bear.    It  is  easy  to 


29 


see  how  the  interests  of  my  three 
oligarchies  tie   in   together. 

'I  often  say  that  if  you  can  meas- 
ure that  of  which  you  can  speak, 
you  know  something  of  your  sub- 
ject; but  if  you  cannot  measure 
it,  your  knowledge  is  meager  and 
unsatisfactory.' — Lord  Kelvin. 

The  Stuff  of  Dreams 

The  last  factor  which  adds  to 
the  strength  of  my  system  and  its 
resistance  to  change  is  the  set  of 
sugar-coated  Abstract  Concepts 
that  has  been  woven  into  it  by 
my  philosophers  and  historians. 
I  conjured  these  empty  ideas  out 
of  nothing.  The  proclivity  of 
men  to  become  enamored  of 
visionary  conceptions  is  truly 
amazing. 

Abstract  concepts  are  compos- 
ed of  symbols  in  the  minds  of 
men  which  are  not  reflections  of 
real  things  in  the  physical  world 
about  him.  For  example,  the 
mental  symbol  'horse'  represents 
something  real  in  the  physical 
world,  that  is,  1500  pounds  of 
flesh  and  bones  on  the  hoof. 
Thus,  it  is  a  Real  Concept.  To 
prove  it,  you  can  perform  an 
operation  to  demonstrate  its 
reality.  You  can  describe  a  horse 
with  words,  i.e.,  other  symbols, 
and  then  go  out  in  the  physical 
world,  find  a  horse  and  show 
where    your    verbal    description 


fits  the  real  thing. 

If  every  single  real  thing  in  the 
physical  world  had  its  symbol  in 
the  minds  of  men,  there  would  be 
an  even  number  of  symbols  and 
things  and  no  more.  All  mental 
symbols  would  be  Real  Concepts. 
Such  is  not  the  case,  however; 
the  minds  of  men  in  addition  to 
being  able  to  contain  Real  Con- 
cepts can  also  entertain  an  ap- 
parently limitless  number  of 
empty  symbols  which  represent 
nothing  in  the  physical  world. 

This  fact  is  one  of  the  main 
props  of  my  system.  Over  a 
period  of  time  my  philosophers 
and  more  lately  that  frustrated 
breed  of  psychotic  complexes 
called  the  Liberal,  have  invented 
thousands  of  Abstract  Concepts 
to  intrigue  the  minds  of  men. 
Among  these  are  Liberty,  Free- 
dom, Equality,  Fraternity,  Jus- 
tice, Natural  Rights  and  Survival 
of  The  Fittest,  Right,  Wrong, 
Morals,  Ethics,  Sin  and  so  on. 
Try  to  perform  an  operation  to 
prove  the  existence  ,of  any  of 
these  concepts  in  the  physical 
world  of  reality  and  see  how  far 
you  get. 

I  am  not  afraid  of  these  Ab- 
stract Concepts  because,  not  be- 
ing physical  entities,  they  can  be 
and  are  clothed  in  ever  shifting 
definitions  and  can  never  be  uni- 
ted on  any  common  basis  of 
agreement.  They  can  never  harm 


m 


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30 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


v--*?  -'•.-£•'' BBS 

I  m 


P 

1 

k 


I 


■ 


■ 


■ 


my  system  and  they're  very  use- 
ful. The  intensity  of  their  hold 
upon  the  minds  of  men  is  so 
great,  however,  that  they  will 
face  blazing  machine  guns  in  de- 
fense of  them  even  though  they 
don't  exist.  Whether  men  will 
go  as  far  in  the  furtherance  of 
Real  Concepts  remains  to  be 
seen. 

Abstract  Concepts  help  to  con- 
ceal the  real  nature  of  my  sys- 
tem. They  keep  men  busy  ever 
seeking  to  attain  that  which  is 
unattainable.  If  you  will  analyze 
my  system  closely,  you  will  see 
that  in  its  physical  operations  to 
produce  goods  and  services,  it 
conforms  to  some  physical  laws. 
But  in  its  exchange  of  this  phy- 
sical wealth,  it  ignores  physical 
laws  and  the  control  is  carried  on 
by  methods  devised  out  of  Ab- 
stract Concepts,  or  nothing.  No 
wonder  it  jams  up  every  so  often. 

Exchange  value  is  a  function  of 
scarcity.  When  scarcity  departs 
the  concept  of  exchange  value 
collapses,  revealing  its  abstract 
nature.  Therefore  under  a  Price 
System  we  are  actually  rich  in 
inverse  proportion  to  what  we 
don't  have,  in  goods  and  services. 

As  long  as  Scarcity  lasts,  my 
system  can  operate.  But  when 
Abundance  enters  the  picture, 
Scarcity  and  Values  both  disap- 
pear and   all  the   Abstract   Con- 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


cepts  of  my  system  will  shrink 
back  into  the  nothing  from 
whence  they  came.  When  this 
occurs,  Real  Concepts  will  enter 
the  picture  and  then  men  will 
discover  for  the  first  time  what 
I  have  known  all  along.  This  is, 
that  the  benefits  they  have  been 
seeking  for  ages  in  Abstract  Con- 
cepts never  did  reside  there  at 
all  but  always  were  waiting  to  be 
found  in  Real  Concepts  derived 
directly  from  the  physical  world 
around  them. 

Abundance  Haunts  Me 

Of  all  the  Real  Concepts  there 
are,  the  one  called  Abundance 
for  Everyone  makes  me  shiver 
every  time  I  hear  it.  Those  words 
contain  my  death  warrant.  As  I 
look  back  now,  I  can  see  that  my 
troubles  began  in  1782  A.D.  when 
the  first  double-acting  steam  en- 
gine was  developed.  Oh!  If  I  had 
only  known  then  what  I  know 
now.  I  would  have  been  abso- 
lutely ruthless  in  the  eradication 
of  Science  and  all  thoughts  con- 
cerning Science. 

For  I  was  just  then  enjoying 
the  tail  end  of  a  thousand  year 
moratorium  on  change.  My  triple 
oligarchy,  Ecclesiasticism,  Pri- 
vate Enterprise  and  the  Political 
State  had  installed  and  maintain- 
ed this  glorious  period  in  my 
name.  Historians  call  it  the 
Dark  Ages,  but  to  me  it  was  the 
Golden  Age  of  the  Price  System. 


31 


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m 


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hHHP 


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There  were  no  upsetting 
thoughts  about  Abundance  for 
Everyone  then.  Men  were  con- 
tent to  work  away  from  sun  to 
sun  for  the  greater  glory  and 
profit  of  their  masters,  assured 
of  suitable  rewards  hereafter. 
The  few  heretics  who  dissented 
from    my    system    were    quickly 

Who  discovered  the  use  of  fire, 
and  how;  who  discovered  the 
principle  of  the  wheel;  who  first 
smelted  iron  ore?  Thousands  of 
contributions  to  the  advance  of 
scientific  knowledge  were  made 
by  countless  known  and  un- 
known men.  Ask  yourself,  who 
owns  science? 

taken  care  of  in  medieval  torture 
chambers  and  at  the  stake.  Long 
success  had  made  me  lax  and  I 
had  forgotten  that  underneath 
the  superimposed  social  struc- 
ture, hoary  with  folklore  and  an- 
cient traditions,  Scientific  Know- 
ledge was  increasing. 

In  the  Ancient  World,  Scien- 
tific Knowledge  had  gotten  off  to 
a  respectable  start 'in  Greece  and 
at  Alexandria.  But  the  legions 
of  Rome  and  fanatical  followers 
of  Mohammed  soon  had  the  situ- 
ation well  in  hand.  Then  I  froze 
the  status  quo  for  a  thousand 
years.  It  seemed  good  enough  to 
last  forever.  Men,  however,  were 
discovering  physical  laws  and 
learning  how     to     apply     them. 


32 


Apparently  even  my  Price  Sys- 
tem can't  stop  men  from  thinking 
and  experimenting. 

I  Am   Outflanked 

By  the  time  the  18th  Century 
rolled  around,  this  growing  body 
of  knowledge  had  spawned  the 
witches'  brew  of  Science,  the 
Scientific  Method  and  the  Scien- 
tific Attitude.  Inventions  were 
made  and  existing  knowledge  of 
physical  laws  applied  therein. 
Machinery  came  into  being, 
crude  and  cumbersome,  but  more 
efficient  than  my  age-old 
methods  of  Human  Toil  and 
Hand  Tools  had  been.  Some  un- 
known enemy  of  mine  discover- 
ed that  any  motion  that  is  repeti- 
tive can  be  performed  better  by 
machinery  than  by  human  hands. 
Then  the  factory  system  of  pro- 
duction was  born  and  my  arch 
enemy  Technology  entered  the 
picture. 

Coincident  with  these  develop- 
ments came  a  greatly  increased 
use  of  power  derived  from 
sources  outside  the  human  body 
such  as  coal,  oil,  gas,  wind  and 
falling  water  to  turn  the  factory 
wheels.  Without  this  latter  de- 
velopment Technology  would  not 
have  attained  its  present  estate. 
Though,  of  course,  Technology 
and  Extraneous  Energy  are  more 
or  less  the  same  thing,  like  iden- 
tical  twins.      The   conversion   of 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■Is* 


Extraneous  Energy  to  use  it  for 
power  was  new  and  revolution- 
ary. 

All  throughout  my  long  his- 
tory, the  only  source  of  power 
available  had  been  the  human 
body  supplemented  by  crude 
windmills  and  the  power  of  work 
animals.  So,  the  only  way  to 
produce  more  was  to  employ 
more  men  or  work  longer  hours. 
The  average  power  of  a  human 
body  is  one-tenth  that  of  an  av- 
erage horse.  In  1782  the  first 
double-acting  steam  engine  de- 
veloped many  times  the  power  of 
one  horse.  So  the  industrial  re- 
volution began  and  I,  poor  fool, 
welcomed  all  this. 

When  George  Washington  drove 
the  250  miles  from  Mt.  Vernon  to 
New  York  City  for  his  inaugura- 
tion the  journey  required  seven 
days.  Today  one  can  reach  any 
place  on  earth  in  less  than  three 
days.  Horse-power  ideas,  too,  be- 
long in  the  horse-power  age. 

Had  I  foreseen  the  ultimate  re- 
sults of  the  impact  of  Technology 
and  Energy  upon  my  Price  Sys- 
tem, I  would  have  put  a  stop  to 
it  in  its  early  stage.  Now  it's  too 
late.  Science  has  grown  to  gar- 
gantuan proportions  and  men 
have  become  dependent  upon  the 
machines  they  have  created.  The 
best  I  can  hope  for  now  is  to  re- 
vert to   some  intermediate   stage 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


of  development  and  freeze  my 
system  there.  In  fact,  I  have  been 
staging  a  powerful  attempt  in 
that  direction  lately  in  Europe 
and  Asia.  I  call  it  Fascism.  It's 
my  only  hope. 

There  is  no  one  to  blame  for 
my  present  predicament  except 
myself.  I  have  been  a  party  to 
my  own  downfall.  Of  all  the 
heretics,  liberals,  and  radicals 
spawned  by  every  protest  move- 
ment in  history,  none  has  given 
me  such  cause  to  worry  as  my 
own  stupidity.  The  operating 
devices  which  worked  so  well  for 
so  long  don't  seem  to  work  so 
well  these  days.  This  has  been 
more  true  in  North  America  than 
in  the  rest  of  the  world.  Here, 
Technology  and  Energy  have  ad- 
vanced further  than  anywhere 
else. 

'When  I  use  a  word,'  Hump- 
ty  Dumpty  said,  'it  means  just 
what  I  choose  it  to  mean — neither 
more  nor  less.' — Lewis  Carrol. 

I  Go  on  a  Long  Spree 

In  the  beginning  of  the  Indus- 
trial Revolution,  I  enjoyed  ex- 
pansion, such  as  had  never  hap- 
pened to  my  system  before.  I 
spread  into  the  furthest  corners 
of  the  earth.  I  modernized  my 
operating  characteristics,  and 
added  refinements  unknown  in 
the  simpler  Agrarian-Handicraft 
stages    of    the    past.      Any    Debt 


33 


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Merchant  or  Economist  can  reel 
off  the  list  for  you.  They  study 
the  pathology  of  my  operating 
devices  (which  you  will  remem- 
ber were  conjured  out  of  noth- 
ing) without  ever  inquiring  into 
their  essential  nature.  That  is 
because  these  gentry  are  well 
chosen  for  lack  of  perspicacity. 
But  at  least  they  are  familiar 
with  the  new  nomenclature. 

When  expansion  began  I  saw 
at  once  that  Private  Enterprise 
needed  a  few  more  Abstract  Con- 
cepts to  assist  it.  So  I  conjured 
up  the  following:  Live  and  Let 
Live,  Competition  Is  the  Life  of 
Trade,  Individual  Initiative,  Plan 
of  Plenty,  Rugged  Individualism, 
Niggardliness  of  Nature,  Law  of 
Diminishing  Returns,  Business 
Responsibility  and  Free  Enter- 
prise. 

They  sound  beautiful  and  have 
functioned  well,  but  I  can  assure 
you  they  are  as  hollow  as  a  puff 
ball. 

When  the  Political  State  saw 
Private  Enterprise  expanding  in- 
to Corporate  Enterprise,  it  too 
had  to  modernize.  So  I  added  a 
set  of  Abstract  Concepts  to  it  al- 
so, such  as:  Political  Democracy, 
The  Voice  of  the  People  is  the 
Voice  of  God,  Government  of 
Laws  and  Not  of  Men,  Equality 
Before  the  Law,  Freedom  of  the 
Press,  Freedom  from  Want,  Free- 
dom from  Fear,  and  so  on.    Any 


politician  can  reel  off  the  list  for 
you.  They're  always  spouting 
about  these  Abstract  Concepts. 

If  you  study  history  closely, 
you  will  find  that  these  latter 
day  Abstract  Concepts  came  in 
with  the  Industrial  Revolution. 
They  are  now  part  and  parcel  of 
my  operating  characteristics.  If 
you  will  examine  them  carefully 
you  will  see  that  they  cannot  be 
worn  as  clothes  to  keep  out  the 
cold  nor  eaten  for  food  to  nourish 
the  body.  They  are  in  all  respects 
negotiable  the  same  as  Money, 
and  can  be  and  are  bought,  sold 
and  traded  in  on  the  open  mar- 
ket. 

Malthusianism   Outwitted 

One  of  the  first  effects  of  the 
Industrial  Revolution  was  an  up- 
surge in  population.  It  was  pos- 
sible with  the  new  power  and 
Technology  to  produce  more 
commodities.  Thus,  it  was  pos- 
sible for  a  larger  number  of  men 
to  live.  This  trend  has  contin- 
ued. For  the  first  hundred  years 
or  so  of  the  new  order,  it  didn't 
matter.  Industry  was  expanding 
and  the  birth  rate  of  new  jobs 
was  always  greater  than  the 
death  rate  of  old  jobs,  eliminated 
by  the  advance  of  Technology.  If 
I  succeed  in  reverting  to  a  lower 
stage  of  industrial  development 
and  freeze  social  change,  it  means 
that  the  population  will  also  have 


34 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


ll'JUjlMfJl. 


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to  be  decreased  to  the  number 
that  can  be  supported  by  a  less 
advanced  stage  of  production. 

In  one  country,  Russia,  com- 
prising one-sixth  of  the  world's 
land  area,  two  members  of  my 
triple  oligarchy  were  kicked  un- 
ceremoniously out  of  the  picture 
by  a  political  revolution  in  1917 
A.D.  These  were  Private  Enter- 
prise and  Ecclesiasticism.  How- 
ever, the  Political  State  took  over 
their  functions  and  I  still  operate 
the  same  old  way  there.  My 
stage  of  development  there  can 
be  defined  as  State  Capitalism. 
It  means  the  same  except  that 
Private  Enterprise  has  become 
State  Enterprise  and  Ecclesiasti- 
cism has  been  emasculated  to  a 
great  extent.  However,  the  Tech- 
nology of  Russia  is  growing  ra- 
pidly and  I  fear  the  worst. 

Fascism  is  a  network  of  compul- 
sions of  economics,  government 
and  religion,  designed  to  freeze 
social  change  and  maintain  the 
ancient  status  woe.  It  is  the  con- 
solidation of  all  minor  rackets  in- 
to one  major  monopoly  for  the 
benefit   of  wealth  and  privilege. 

Most  of  the  world  is  still  in  the 
first  or  second  stages  of  the  In- 
dustrial Revolution,  and  it 
shouldn't  be  too  hard  to  retard 
social  change  there.  These  back- 
ward nations  do  not  possess  en- 
ough natural  resources  to  devel- 


op much  further.  I,  the  Price 
System,  can  still  operate  accord- 
ing to  the  old  formula  there. 
Perhaps  a  federation  of  some  na- 
tions based  upon  the  location  of 
natural  resources  could  arise. 
That  would  make  conditions  un- 
comfortable for  me.  The  Politi- 
cal State  in  every  country,  how- 
ever, is  prepared  with  a  power- 
ful Abstract  Concept  called 
Nationalism  to  oppose  any 
change.  The  juju  of  my  Abstract 
Concepts  is  potent,  even  if  they 
themselves  are  not  real. 

Down  that  Lonesome  Road 

As  I  survey  the  world  today, 
I  find  one  Continent  where  I  am 
in  extreme  danger  of  liquidating 
myself  in  the  very  near  future. 
I  am  not  one  to  cast  blame  for 
my  failures  upon  others.  No 
political  ideologies  or  economic 
Utopian  nostrums  can  alter  the 
basic  operating  characteristics  of 
my  system  one  bit.  The  pro- 
ponents make  good  scapegoats 
but  my  real  enemy  is  the  fact  I, 
the  Price  System,  cannot  adjust 
myself  today  in  America  to  the 
impact  of  Technology  and  Ener- 
gy. 

In  the  past  when  things  got 
tough  for  me  in  any  country,  I 
could  always  start  a  war  and 
channelize  social  change  into 
homicidal  conflict.  In  the  past 
3500   years,    I   have   had   one   or 


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SEPTEMBER,  1944 


35 


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more  countries  at  war  for  all  but 
330  years  of  that  time.  Corporate 
Enterprise  particularly,  benefits 
greatly  in  time  of  war.  Prices 
rise,  business  booms  and  profits 
mount  higher.  The  Political 
State  too  has  an  opportunity  to 
expand  its  powers  and  preroga- 
tives. Ecclesiasticism,  of  course, 
functions  on  both  sides  in  every 
war.  As  a  general  rule,  the  same 
can  be  said  for  Corporate  Enter- 
prise in  these  days  of  Interna- 
tional Bankers,  Cartel  Agree- 
ments and  World  Commerce. 
Technology,  however,  has  made 
war  too  expensive  for  me.  Not 
that  I  mind  the  killing,  but  the 
financial  problems  are  a  head- 
ache. Worst  of  all,  modern  wars 
are  waged  with  the  tools  of  Tech- 
nology and  (woe  is  me)  the  tools 
of  Technology  are  the  tools  of 
social  change. 

In  America,  today,  the  more 
Technology  and  Energy  that  is 
introduced,  the  more  insoluble 
my  problem  becomes.  It  seems 
that  they  function  everywhere  to 
defeat  my  purpose  to  maintain 
Scarcity  and  Values.  They  in- 
crease Profits  but  make  it  ever 
more  and  more  difficult  to  rein- 
vest Profits.  They  raise  the  Debt 
too  high  and  lower  the  Interest 
Rate  too  low.  They  increase  pro- 
duction and  decrease  employ- 
ment. They  cut  down  Purchas- 
ing Power  and  raise  up  a  whole 


host  of  new  social  problems  that 
never  existed  before.  They  flood 
the  land  with  Goods  and  Ser- 
vices, but  dry  up  the  free  flow  of 
Medium  of  Exchange.  They  close 
the  door  on  Scarcity,  but  open 
it  for  Abundance  for  Everyone, 
thus  seriously  threatening  to  de- 
stroy Values. 

The  efforts  of  the  Price  System  to 
stop  the  impact  of  technology  are 
as  futile  as  the  labors  of  Sisy- 
phus. The  only  solutions  are  to 
stop  technology;  or  realign  the 
social  structure  in  conformity 
with  physical  laws. 

All  this,  in  spite  of  my  best 
efforts  at  Monopoly  Control,  Re- 
stricted Production,  High  Prices, 
Shoddy  Goods,  Buried  Patents, 
Cartel  Agreements  and  Financial 
and  Political  Interference.  More- 
over, the  struggle  for  survival  of 
Private  Enterprise  makes  com- 
pulsory the  installation  of  ever 
more  Technology  and/or  Ex- 
traneous Energy. 

Economic  Impasse 

No  matter  which  way  I  turn, 
in  America,  there  is  an  impasse. 
The  task  of  creating  new  Debt 
in  the  face  of  its  rapid  liquida- 
tion and  the  expense  of  new 
Technology  becomes  ever  more 
and  more  unbearable.  About 
1932  Corporate  Enterprise  gave 
up  the   struggle   to   create   New 


36 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


ID  • 
WmmHEm 


_^H 


fl 


■ 


Debt  and  passed  that  responsibi- 
lity over  to  the  Political  State. 
This  Lieutenant  of  mine,  as 
strong  as  he  is  now,  barely  stag- 
gers along  under  the  growing 
load.  Perhaps  I  can  solve  that 
one  particular  problem  at  least. 
Debt,  if  you  remember,  is  created 
out  of  nothing.  It  can  also  be 
dissolved  back  into  nothing.  I 
pulled  that  stunt  once  before  in 
Germany.     It's  called  Inflation. 

Political  State  increases  the 
amount  of  Money  in  circulation 
until  it  becomes  dirt  cheap.  When 
the  total  amount  of  Money  be- 
comes many  times  greater  than 
the  total  Debt,  the  relative  posi- 
tion of  Debt  is  reversed  compar- 
ed to  what  it  was  before.  It 
is  then  small  in  comparison  to 
Money.  So  the  Debtor  takes  this 
Legal  Money  to  his  Creditor  and 
pays  off  his  Legal  Debts  at  a  frac- 
tion of  their  former  worth.  It's 
a  legal  swindle,  but  so  what? 
How  about  I  Promise  to  Pay,  you 
ask?  Well,  I  told  you,  it  was  con- 
jured out  of  nothing,  didn't  I? 
Under  Inflation,  Private  Enter- 
prise performs  hari-kiri,  for  the 
good  of  all  and  then  I  start  all 
over  again  with  a  brand  new 
Private  Enterprise. 

That  won't  solve  my  entire 
problem  in  America  though.  This 
Continent  possesses  78  percent 
of  the  world's  installed  horse- 
power of  machinery,   73  percent 


of  the  world's  graduate  engineers 
(those  damnable  brats  of  Science 
who  are  forever  designing  new 
Technology),  19  percent  of  the 
World's  land  area,  the  largest 
body  of  technicians  and  skilled 
personnel  on  earth,  the  lion's 
share  of  the  World's  natural  re- 
sources and  only  10  percent  of 
the  World's  population.  All  this 
adds  up  to  trouble  for  my  Sys- 
tem, the  Price  System,  of  pro- 
duction and  Exchange  of  com- 
modities. 

Science  is  a  fair  palace  of  lofty 
dimensions.  It  stands  properly 
ordered  and  rock  solid,  upon  the 
enduring  base  of  its  postulates. 
Criticisms  originating  outside  its 
postulates  are  categorically  ab- 
surd. 

The  installation  of  ever  more 
and  efficient  Technology  in  Am- 
erica, which  has  been  accelerated 
by  World  War  No.  2,  makes 
Scarcity  ever  harder  to  maintain 
and  tends  to  dry  up  the  free  flow 
of  Medium  of  Exchange.  If  you 
remember,  these  are  the  corner- 
stones of  my  system.  As  more 
and  more  efficient  Technological 
Mechanisms  are  introduced,  man- 
hours  per  unit  of  Production  are 
constantly  driven  lower.  This 
spells  disemployment  of.  labor 
and  decline  of  total  purchasing 
Power.  The  less  Purchasing 
Power,  the  less  Production.  The 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


37 


less  Production  the  less  Purchas- 
ing Power. 

Debt  and  Production 

So  it  becomes  necessary  to 
create  ever  more  New  Debt  to 
pay  for  the  installation  of  still 
more  efficient  mechanisms  to  cut 
the  costs  of  Production  and  grab 
a  share  of  the  dwindling  market. 
The  new  mechanisms,  however, 
pay  off  the  Debt  so  fast  that  I'm 
left  holding  the  bag  every  time. 
Reinvestment  in  new  industry 
becomes  ever  more  necessary 
and  ever  more  difficult. 

The  birth  rate  of  new  jobs 
created  by  Technology  has  long 
since  dropped  below  the  death 
rate  of  old  jobs  destroyed  by  the 
same  cause.  From  1860  to  1914 
in  America,  my  Debt  expanded 
at  a  compound  Interest  Rate  of 
5  percent  annually.  But  physi- 
cal Production  expanded  at  a 
compound  interest  rate  of  6  per- 
cent annually.  The  Debt  was  al- 
ways healthy.  Since  1914  the  re- 
verse has  been  the  case.  Physi- 
cal Production  has  risen  to  a 
peak  and  leveled  off  but  Debt  is 
going  straight  into  the  high 
heavens.  Since  1932  when  Pri- 
vate Enterprise  dumped  its  Debt- 
creating  prerogative  onto  Politi- 
cal State,  the  curve  of  industrial 
Production  has  been  following 
the  curve  of  Government  spend- 
ing like   a  hound   dog  follows  a 


coon. 

As  I  said,  it's  not  a  problem 
of  finances;  it's  a  problem  of  how 
to  maintain  physical  Production 
at  a  high  level  so  as  to  maintain 
Purchasing  Power  and  thus 
maintain  the  free  flow  of  Medi- 
um of  Exchange.  If  I  allow  phy- 
sical Production  to  be  maintain- 
ed at  a  high  level,  I  destroy  Scar- 
city and  if  I  don't  I  dry  up  the 
flow  of  Medium  of  Exchange. 
Oh,  riddle  of  riddles!  How  can 
it  be  done?  If  I  inflate  the 
Money,  I  may  destroy  all  of  the 
little  remaining  confidence  in  me 
and  thus  seal  my  own  death  war- 
rant. I  got  away  with  it  in  Ger- 
many only  because  that  country 
was  less  advanced  industrially 
and  could  recover  rapidly  and  re- 
sume expanding  under  my  meth- 
ods. 

When  the  first  savage  reached 
for  a  stick  to  scratch  his  back 
with,  technology  was  born.  It 
has  been  a  long  time  coming  of 
age.  But  now  it's  here,  and  we 
can  either  make  room  for  tomor- 
row or  pay  the  penalty.  This 
generation  of  Americans  has  a 
rendezvous  with  destiny. 

In  America,  the  problem  of 
Production  is  solved.  The  Tech- 
nology is  installed  and  can  do  the 
job  of  distribution  of  Abundance 
for  Everyone  whenever  my  in- 
terference controls  are  removed. 


38 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


■ 


n 

"  H  H  ai£ 

■■I  '  Wtffc. 

MEHXSmMKAJ 
I  ■  V 


My  problem  is  to  stall  this  off  as 
long  as  possible;  and  to  devise 
ways  and  means  to  freeze  social 
change  on  a  low  level.  I  don't 
care  if  it  does  involve  killing  off 
50  to  75  percent  of  the  population 
of  America.  What  is  that  com- 
pared to  my  beloved  Oligarchies, 
Private  Enterprise,  and  the  Poli- 
tical State! 

Rule   or  Ruin 

Since  I  was  conceived  in  Scar- 
city and  dedicated  to  Waste  I  am 
utterly  without  scruples.  I  know 
very  well  that  the  prosperity  I 
am  enjoying  now  while  America 
is  engaged  in  the  most  fateful 
war  of  her  history  is  only  transi- 
tory. I  know  that  it  has  been 
bought  at  the  terrific  risk  of  in- 
stalling a  greatly  expanded  Tech- 
nology. I  know  that  when  the 
war  is  over  I  will  be  faced  with 
problems  such  as  I  never  had  to 
contend  with  before. 

I  know  that  scientists  and  en- 
gineers have  been  analyzing  my 
operating  characteristics  and 
have  pointed  out  every  flaw.  I 
know  too  that  a  more  efficient 
social  system  has  been  designed 
which  will  distribute  Abundance 
and  Security  To  Everyone.  But 
even  though  I  know  the  hand- 
writing is  on  the  wall  I  have  not 
lost  hope.  My  collapse,  and  the 
victory  of  Technology,  is  not 
inevitable. 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


If  I  cannot  rule  I  can  always 
ruin.  If  I  go  down  I  may  be  able 
to  arrange  things  so  as  to  carry 
all  civilization  in  America  with 
me.  But  even  if  Chaos  results  I 
will  then  arise  again  like  Phoenix 
from  its  own  ashes.  For  I  have 
been  with  you  a  long  time  and  I 
have  learned  many  tricks.  His- 
tory records  the  disappearance  of 
eight  different  civilizations  of  the 
past.  The  causes  are  obscured 
in  the  mists  of  antiquity.  But 
history  has  never  yet  written  the 
record  of  one  single  collapse  of 
my  system  of  trade  and  com- 
merce, The  Price  System. 

Social  change  in  the  past  could 
only  be  accomplished  with  vio- 
lence. Social  change  in  the  Power 
Age  can  only  be  accomplished  in 
peace.  The  Achilles  heel  of  tech- 
nology is  social  violence. 

There  is  only  one  thing  that 
can  liquidate  me  permanently. 
That  is  the  replacement  of  my 
Price  System  methods  of  control 
devised  out  of  visionary  concep- 
tions by  Technological  methods 
of  control  devised  out  of  the  real- 
ity of  physical  laws.  But  it  has 
never  been  done  before  and  due 
to  the  nature  of  Technology  it 
must  be  accomplished  peacefully. 
How  difficult  that  is  going  to  be  a 
glance  at  my  record  will  reveal. 
I  loathe  Peace.  As  I  look  into 
the  immediate  future  I  can  gather 


39 


>..    „"i 


-      '  ■ 


dHRykJH 


H 


II 


■ 

■MsEH 


H 


'■<*':■ 


strength  from  the  realization  that 
I  am  not  alone.  I  have  many  able 
allies  who  work  unceasingly  in 
my  interests.  Some  of  them  have 
been  with  me  a  long  time. 

Look  at  my  Record 

I  am  the  Neolithic  man  who 
bartered  pretty  sea  shells  and 
rare  stones  for  food  and  drink 
and  a  place  by  the  fire.  I  am  the 
tribal  medicine  man  who  charged 
a  fee  for  exorcizing  the  devils.  I 
am  the  slaves  of  Egypt  who  built 
the  pyramids;  and  the  Pharaohs 
who  were  buried  there  many 
centuries  before  my  system  ex- 
panded into  Europe.  I  am  the 
oligarchy  of  Athens  who  poison- 
ed Socrates.  I  am  Judas  who  be- 
trayed Christ;  and  the  Pharisees 
who  crucified  him.  I  am  the  le- 
gions of  Rome  who  conquered 
Greece;  and  the  fanatics  of  Mo- 
hammed who  burned  the  library 
at  Alexandria.  I  am  the  Inquisi- 
tion that  persecuted  Galileo;  and 
burned  Bruno  at  the  stake.  I  am 
the  radicals  of  Paris  who  behead- 
ed Lavoisier:  'The  revolution  has 
no  need  of  chemists.'  How  true 
from  my  point  of  view.  I  am  the 
Political  State  that  hanged  John 
Brown.  I  am  the  brass  hats  who 
framed  and  convicted  Billy  Mit- 
chell. I  am  the  Capital  Invest- 
ment of  the  aviation  industry 
which  is  holding  back  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Flying  Wing  type  of 


super-bomber   in  this     hour     of 
America's  need. 

My  Upholders  Are  Legion 

I  am  the  esthetes  who  revel  in 
the  delicacies  of  life  that  are  be- 
yond the  reach  of  the  great  maj- 
ority. I  am  the  privileged  few 
who  are  free  to  enjoy  the  fresh 
air  and  sunshine,  the  green 
meadows,  streams  and  mountains 
of  America.  I  am  all  the  pot- 
bellied beneficiaries  of  my  sys- 
tem, whether  in  broadcloth  or 
overalls.  I  am  also  the  stolid, 
patient,  underfed  worker;  and 
the  fat  dowager  who  eats  too 
much  and  talks  too  much.  I  am 
the  miseducated,  smart  fool  who 
knows  all  the  wrong  answers,  I 
am  the  white  collar  snobs,  the 
vice-Presidents  and  Honorable 
stooges  who  snub  those  in  more 
plebian  walks  of  life;  and  the 
peasant  psychology  of  the  under- 
dog who  looks  up  to  Society  in- 
stead of  around  at  it.  I  am  the 
myriad  of  non-producing  person- 
nel in  industries  who  thrive  on 
the  institutionalized  red  tape  of 
my  system. 

I  am  the  grand  mansions  on 
the  Avenue  where  they  will  try 
anything  once;  and  I  am  the 
bleak,  filthy  slums  where  minds 
and  bodies  are  dulled  by  inces- 
sant poverty.  I  am  the  Park 
Avenue  playboy;  and  the  procur- 
er who  hangs     around     taverns. 


40 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


M 


H    m 


;&#    M       ■ 


.";/»•• 


I  .'•  I 


S&aS! 


s 

: 


Their  methods  differ  in  degree 
but  not  in  kind.  I  am  the  mink 
coats  of  the  night  clubs.  'You 
can  smell  them  as  they  go  by.'  I 
am  all  the  'Nice'  kind  Christian 
people  of  America.  How  they 
love  to  be  discreetly  dishabille, 
but  not  enceinte;  and  how  their 
hearts  can  bleed  for  the  poverty 
stricken  children  of  India,  China 
and  all  other  points  12,000  miles 
away.  I  have  been  spawning 
them  for  four  generations  and  to- 
day they  are  'Nicer'  than  ever. 
I  am  the  Banker  (Debt  Mer- 
chant) who  never  knew  anything 
about  his  own  commodity  except 
how  to  take  a  dollar  and  lend  it 
out  at  6  percent  interest. 

I  am  the  housewife  in  a  con- 
stant dither  to  keep  up  with  the 
Jones'.  I  am  that  monstrous  ana- 
hronism  the  father  and  mother 
who  ensalve  their  beloved  child- 
ren to  their  own  narrow  horizons 
in  the  'sacred'  name  of  parent- 
hood. I  am  the  church  bell  ring- 
ing on  Sunday  morning;  and  the 
smug  ecclesiastic  who  rationalizes 
fear  of  the  unknown  into  reward 
after  death.  My  voice  is  heard 
plainly  in  schools  and  I  am  the 
school  teacher  who  'cannot  lead 
a  normal  life  unless  he,  or  she, 
goes  to  another  town  under  an 
assumed  name.'  I  am  the  profes- 
sors of  Liberal  Arts  and  the  Hu- 
manities; the  smooth  sophistries 
of  the  philosophers;  the  crackpot 


dreams  of  the  Utopians;  and  the 
poisonous  acid  of  class  warfare. 

'Behind  all  these  men  you  have 
to  do  with,  behind  officers  and 
government,  and  people  even, 
there  is  the  Country  Herself, 
your  Country,  and  .  .  .  you  be- 
long to  Her  as  you  belong  to 
your  own  mother.  Stand  by  Her, 
boy,  as  you  would  stand  by  your 
mother.' — Edward  Everett  Hale 
in  The  Man  Without  a  Country. 

Divide  and  Conquer 

I  am  the  shivering  newsboy  on 
the  corner  peddling  his  daily 
trash;  the  writer  who  composes 
it;  the  editor  who  polishes  it  up; 
the  publisher  who  put  it  out;  the 
advertiser  who  pays  for  it  and 
censors  it;  and  the  dumb  sap  who 
believes  what  he  reads  in  the 
papers.  I  am  the  hard-headed 
tycoon  of  industry  who  imagines 
his  club  of  economic  insecurity 
is  executive  ability;  and  I  am  the 
Caspar  Milquetoast  who  is  afraid 
to  think  out  loud.  I  am  the  law 
at  the  end  of  the  policeman's 
nightstick;  the  politician  who 
tells  him  how  far  he  can  go  in  en- 
forcing the  law;  I  am  the  hired 
gunman  and  thug;  and  the  stool- 
pigeon  who  puts  the  finger  on 
my  scapegoats.  I  am  also  the 
clever  lawyer  who  inveigles 
Justice  over  to  the  side  with  the 
most  Money. 


mm. 


mm 

m 

M9 

ffc 

isJ* 

Vr* 

■ 
ns3r 


4B 


JHIS 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


41 


I 
1 1 


■I 


&£»§& 


'  ■P'finBPS  S^ 


I  am  all  the  minority  pressure 
groups  seeking  preferential  ad- 
vantages at  the  expense  of  other 
minority  groups;  and  I  am  the 
peoples'  representative  who  cat- 
ers to  these  groups.  I  am  the 
cash-register  concept  of  social 
values  of  the  smart  business  man; 
and  the  class  hatred  of  the  ideo- 
logists of  dialectic  materialism.  I 
am  the  engineer  and  scientist 
who  is  more  interested  in  person- 
al gain  than  in  social  results.  I 
am  all  the  commercial  escapisms 
of  modern  society,  from  the  mor- 
onic movies  to  the  equally  mor- 
onic but  $30,000,000  a  year  comic 
strip  industry.  I  am  the  millions 
of  adults  and  children  in  this 
country  who  cannot  even  read 
and  write.  I  am  the  incalculable 
inertia  of  the  great  mass  who 
never  do  anything  about  any- 
thing unless  they  are  driven  to  it. 

I  am  the  social  system  and  in- 
stitutions designed  to  fit  the  Ag- 


rarian-Handicraft cultures  of 
other  lands,  imported  from  across 
the  ocean  and  superimposed  up- 
on the  Great  Technology  of 
America.  I  am  the  folklore  and 
hoary  traditions  of  7000  years  of 
human  toil,  hand  tools  and  Scar- 
city. I  am  the  'commonsense'  of 
the  ignorant  crowd;  and  all  the 
superstitions  of  the  unknown.  I 
am  every  chiseler  looking  for  a 
sucker;  and  every  sucker  who 
would  like  to  be  a  chiseler.  I 
am  everyman  everywhere  with  a 
hamburger  sandwich  psychology 
of  living  standards,  in  the  richest 
Continent  on  earth.  I  am  all 
those  who  know  better  but  do 
nothing  about  it. 

I  am  YOU  who  are  reading 
this  article.  What  have  you  ever 
done  that  conflicts  with  my  in- 
terests? With  such  able  allies  it 
will  not  be  easy  for  Technology 
to  effect  my  collapse. 
'I   AM   THE    PRICE    SYSTEM.' 


Air  Power  Eats  Up  Gasoline 

ir  AIR  POWER  eats  up  gasoline — on  a  scale  never  known  before. 
Every  day  R.C.A.F.  airfields  here  in  Canada  consume  an  average  of 
more  than  400,000  gallons;  in  one  30-day  period  alone  they  used  an 
average  of  548,000  gallons  a  day.  It  takes  as  much  aviation  gasoline 
to  train  one  pilot  as  to  run  a  car  for  18  years. 

In  one  day's  raid  on  the  German  cities  of  Wilhelmshafen  and  Dus- 
seldorf,  approximately  5,000,000  gallons  were  used.  Three  tons  of  avi- 
ation gasoline  are  needed  to  'deliver'  every  one-ton  bomb.  Every  Mos- 
quito that  raids  Berlin  consumes  900  gallons.  The  equivalent  of  your 
year's  'AA'  ration  would  last  a  Lancaster  bomber  only  %  an  hour. 

In  this  war  the  demand  for  aviation  fuel  alone  exceeds  the  total  de- 
mand for  all  petroleum  products  during  the  last  war.  Here  in  Canada 
this  demand  has  jumped  from  5.453,930  gallons  in  1939  to  176,298,570 
gallons  in  the  year  ended  March  31,  1944 — more  than  32  times  as 
much!  — Dept.  of  Munitions  and  Supply 


42 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


vfiHtti 


■ 


■ 


I 


Wanted  -  A  National  Fuel  Policy! 


WHILE  waiting  for  a  prom- 
ised long  range  national 
fuel  policy  to  be  based  on  the 
findings  of  a  Royal  Commission, 
the  coal  industry  of  Western  Ca- 
nada is  confronted  by  immediate 
problems  which  are  made  mani- 
fest   in    declining   production. 

Official  figures  disclose  that  in 
the  first  half  of  this  year  the 
three  western  provinces  have 
produced  a  total  of  5,059,800  tons 
of  coal.  This  is  410,550  tons  less 
than  in  the  corresponding  period 
of  1943. 

Total  coal  output  for  B.  C.  for 
the  half  year  actually  showed  an 
increase  due  to  the  larger  pro- 
duction resulting  from  the  bring- 
ing in  of  the  Elk  River  Colliery 
by  Crow's  Nest  Pass  Coal  Co. 
Ltd.  and  operation  of  the  Corbin 
Colliery  by  Consolidated  M.  &  S. 
Co. 

Higher  production  in  the  East 
Kootenay  district  more  than  off- 
set declining  production  on  Van- 
couver Island  with  the  result  that 
total  coal  output  for  British  Co- 
lumbia for  the  half  year  was 
984,540  tons  compared  with  905,- 
637  tons  in  the  first  half  of  1943. 

Chiefly  responsible  for  the 
overall  decline  in  Western  Cana- 
da was  a  very  pronounced  falling 
off  in  production  in  Alberta.     In 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


the  six  months  of  1944  Alberta 
output,  totalled  3,452,380  tons 
compared  with  3,876,107  tons  in 
the  first  half  of  1943,  a  decline  of 
423,727  tons. 

The  drop  in  Saskatchewan  pro- 
duction was  more  moderate  but 
it  is  to  Alberta  that  Western 
Canada  must  look  for  the  major 
portion  of  its  supply.  The  Sas- 
katchewan half  year  output  was 
622,880  tons  compared  with  688,- 
606  tons. 

Alberta  operators  urge  that  in 
evolving  a  long  range  coal  in- 
dustry policy  in  Western  Canada 
steps  should  be  taken  to  avoid 
a  situation  like  that  which  crop- 
ped up  early  this  year.  Due  to 
the  mild  winter  there  was  a 
scarcity  of  orders  in  the  first 
months  of  1944  and  this,  in  turn, 
forced  some  collieries  to  close 
for  lack  of  demand. 

The  contention  is  that,  as  fuel 
is  under  federal  control,  it  should 
be  a  federal  responsibility  to  en- 
sure full  time  employment  for 
mine  workers  and  thus  avoid  dis- 
location of  operations  by  tempor- 
ary market  conditions.  Difficulty 
of  re-assembling  crews  ,  after  a 
shut-down  is  accentuated  by  the 
current  man-power  shortage. 

— Vancouver  News  Herald 


43 


KB 


The  War  between  Plenty  and  Price 


WE  are  now  getting  a  flood 
of  reports  from  the  Alas- 
ka Highway  which  prove  that 
there  has  been  wholesale  de- 
struction of  goods  and  supplies, 
left  behind  on  the  completion  of 
the  project.  We  get  similar  re- 
ports from  Manitoba — where  one 
air  force  training  station  has  been 
closed  down.  All  sorts  of  useful 
things — from  washtubs  to  used 
clothing — are  alleged  to  have 
been  destroyed  at  the  latter 
point.  The  deliberate  destruction 
in  the  far  north  is  said  to  be  on  a 
vast  scale. 

These  things  go  right  to  the 
heart  of  our  demobilization  prob- 
lem. They  raise  such  vital  issues 
that  it  is  imperative  for  all  ordin- 
ary people  to  think  about  those 
issues  now. 

Already  organized  business 
groups  are  getting  together  to 
coerce  the  governments  to  repeat 
on  a  colossal  scale  the  same  wan- 
ton destruction — the  same  de- 
liberate maintenance  of  scarcity 
as  we  had  in  the  depression.  The 
most  notable  example  is  that  of  a 
motor  car  organization  which  re- 


Reprinted  from  the  VANCOUVER 
SUN  by  kind  permission  of  the  au- 
thor, Elmore  Philpott. 


cently  claimed  (it  turned  out 
without  justification)  to  have  a 
secret  promise  from  the  govern- 
ment to  sell  the  thousands  of 
army  jeeps  to  people  who  want 
and  need  them.  For  fear  of  in- 
juring the  interests  of  this  one 
service  group  all  of  the  people 
would  be  denied  the  benefit  of 
good,  cheap  little  gas  buggies. 

When  the  U.  S.  government 
sent  its  engineers  in  to  build  the 
Alaska  Highway  Canada  made  an 
arrangement  which  stipulated 
that  everything  not  used  in  the 
construction  would  be  shipped 
out  of  the  country.  There  was 
nothing  wrong  with  that  prin- 
ciple. But  there  is  something 
radically  wrong  in  the  relations 
of  the  two  countries  when — not 
wanting  to  go  to  the  expense  of 
shipping  vast  quantities  of  mater- 
ial back  across  the  border — the 
U.  S.  authorities  are  constrained 
to  destroy  valuable  goods  on  the 
spot. 

It  is  a  strange  war  in  which 
Canada  can  make  three  gifts  of 
a  billion  dollars  apiece  to  her  Al- 
lies in  this  war  and  yet  can  not 
apply  the  same  principle  on  the 
home  front  to  dispose  of  useful 
goods  which  are  being  burned  or 
buried. 


44 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


£v*      ►#•**    ' 


IB 


A 


There  is  a  new  musical  play 
now  running  in  New  York  called 
Oklahoma.  It  is  the  closest  thing 
to  a  real  native  American  light 
opera  that  this  continent  has  yet 
produced.  It  deals  with  that 
period  which  began  with  the 
loudest  call  in  all  the  history  of 
man,  'Come  and  get  it.'  Fifty 
thousand  human  beings  lined  up 
on  the  edge  of  that  last  vast 
chunk  of  land  to  be  stolen  from 
the  Indian  and  literally,  physic- 
ally raced  to  grab  their  future 
homesteads. 

We  need  just  a  little  bit  of  that 
common  sense  come-and-get-it 
spirit  in  dealing  with  the  prob- 
lems which  are  going  to-  face  us 
after  this  war.  Not  one  scrap  of 
metal — not  one  shred  of  clothing 
— not  one  useful  thing  should  be 
destroyed  after  this  war  simply 
to  take  the  short  and  easy  way 
out  of  the  'problem'  of  disposal. 

If  necessary  these  things 
should  be  given  away  to  the 
nearest  person  who  wants  to  use 
them.  We  did  that  with  the  land. 
Is  it  beyond  our  capacity  or 
commonsense  to  do  that  with 
washtubs,  blankets,  and  even 
jeeps? 


The  scandal  of  the  years  before 
the  war  was  that  our  whole 
scheme  of  distribution  was  based 
on  the  perverted  doctrine  that 
the  interests  of  the  few  sellers  of 
things  are  more  important  than 
the  interests  of  the  many  users 
of  those  same  things.  Thus,  to 
maintain  the  price  of  (and  profit 
on)  coffee  we  burned  coffee.  We 
plowed  under  cotton,  cremated 
suckling  pigs.  We  deliberately 
re-created  the  condition  of  partial 
scarcity  in  order  to  get  our  up- 
side down  economic  system 
working  again. 

What  father  or  mother  of  a 
family  would  permit  the  deliber- 
ate destruction  of  goods  which 
were  desired  and  needed  by  some 
members  of  the  family — simply 
because  free  access  of  such  goods 
would  mean  that  the  recipients 
would  not  have  to  buy  those 
goods  from  somebody  else? 

Not  till  Canada  begins  to  think 
of  itself  as  all  one  family — not 
till  humanity  begins  to  regard  it- 
self as  all  one  family — will  we 
really  begin  to  build  the  kind  of 
system  which  can  never  be  over- 
thrown because  it  is  built  upon 
a  rock.  — Elmore  Philpott 


•k  WINNIPEG,  July  8.  —  The  Winnipeg  Tribune  said  in  a  newspage 
story  today  that  there  was  'general  anger'  among  the  citizens  of  Bran- 
don when  they  learned  that  an  estimated  5,000  to  6,000  articles  from 
the  A-4  Army  training  centre  had  been  destroyed  by  army  axe-wield- 
ers.They  included  coal  scuttles,  washtubs,  pails,  kitchen  and  cooking 
utensils.  Scores  of  Brandon  people,  the  paper  said,  salvaged  a  variety 
of  utensils,  repaired  them,  and  now  have  them  in  use  — Canadian  Press 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


45 


Canada  and  Immigration 


IN  THE  twenty  minutes  at  my 
disposal,  I  want  to  analyse 
three  great  aspects  of  our  nation- 
al life: 

(1)  Our  effective  area,  from 
the  standpoint  of  immigration. 

(2)  Our  resources,  by  which  to 
provide  for  population  growth. 

(3)  The  present  character  of 
our  population,  and  the  lessons 
to  be  learned  from  it. 

Before  I  launch  out  upon  the 
stormy  waters  of  statistics,  how- 
ever, I  should  like  to  put  on  re- 
cord  one   qualifying   principle. 

Post-war  immigration  policy 
should  visualize  and  provide  as- 
surance of  relatively  full  employ- 
ment for  our  population,  regard- 
less of  racial  origin.  Until  the 
Canadian  economy  has  made  due 
provision  for  the  millions  of  Ca- 
nadians now  in  the  armed  forces, 
and  in  special  war  industries,  we 
have  no  business  to  jeopardize 
their  economic  security  by  pour- 
ing  in    extensive    immigration. 


From  an  address  delivered  at  the 
third  session  of  the  Manpower  Con- 
ference on  June  13,  1944,  by  Watson 
Kirkconnel,  Professor  of  English, 
McMaster  University,  Hamilton.  Re- 
printed from  the  July  1944  issue  of 
INDUSTRIAL  CANADA  by  kind 
permission   of  the  author. 


And  now  to  come  to  grips  with 
the  realities  of  our  Canadian  eco- 
nomy. 

Few  subjects  are  so  complete- 
ly misunderstood  by  Canadians 
as  the  extent  of  their  country 
that  is  available  for  settlement. 
Our  vast  area  on  the  map  in- 
spires the  patriot  to  make 
speeches  on  the  unlimited  expan- 
sion of  population  that  we  may 
look  for.  But  let  us  get  down  to 
statistics.  The  over-all  area  of 
Canada  is  estimated  at  3,750,000 
square  miles.  The  Canada  Year 
Book,  however,  lists  two  million 
square  miles  as  'waste  land'  and 
another  million  and  a  quarter 
miles  as  'fit  for  forest  only.'  The 
1940  edition,  at  page  251,  states 
that  only  8.6  percent  of  Canada's 
area  is  arable.  This  amounts  to 
only  325,000  square  miles,  or  the 
combined  area  of  Texas  and  Ok- 
lahoma, and  three  quarters  of 
this  is  already  being  used  for 
field  crops  and  pasture. 

This  point  cannot  be  too 
strongly  and  frequently  stressed. 
Canada  could  give  away  over  90 
per  cent  of  its  territory  and  still 
retain  all  of  the  land  that  is  a- 
vailable  for  permanent  settle- 
ment. One  sack  of  coal  delivered 
in  a  two-ton  truck  remains  one 


46 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


I 


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i 

■ 


sack  of  coal. 

It  is  on  this  more  modest  basis 
'  of  settlement  that  we  need  to  es- 
timate the  possible  population  of 
Canada.  In  terms  of  our  more 
restricted  area,  the  population  of 
Canada  is  not  3  per  square  mile 
but  35.4  per  square  mile,  or  more 
than  twice  the  density  of  Texas. 
The  density  for  the  entire  United 
States  in  1920  was  35.5  per 
square  mile.  On  a  New  World 
basis,  we  are  not  so  glaringly 
underdeveloped. 

Over  against  the  congested 
population  of  Europe  or  India, 
however,  we,  like  the  United 
States,  may  seem  to  be  prodigal- 
ly provided  with  elbow-room.  If 
peasants  in  the  Balkans  can  raise 
a  family  on  five  acres  of  land, 
why  cannot  Canada,  by  compar- 
able concentration,  add  several 
millions  to  its  population? 

It  may  be  admitted  at  once 
that  after  centuries  an  ultimate 
swarming  of  this  sort  may  come. 
Permit  me  to  summarize,  how- 
ever, certain  reasons  why  it  is 
not  likely  to  come  in  our  time: 

(1)  Most  of  the  arable  land  in 
Canada  is  already  owned  and  oc- 
cupied. He  would  be  a  bold 
bureaucrat  who  would  ask  the 
average  Ontario  farmer  to  move 
and  make  room  for  19  other 
families  on  his  100-acre  farm. 
The  whole  trend  of  agriculture 
in  the  world  today,  moreover,  is 

SEPTEMBER,  1944 


toward  larger  farm  units  and 
greater  mechanization,  calling  for 
fewer  hands  to  work.  Part  of 
the  exodus  from  Western  Cana- 
da is  due  to  the  fact  that  every 
combine  deprives  at  least  five 
men  of  a  harvest  job.  The  big 
collective  farms  in  Soviet  Russia 
represent  the  same  tendency  on 
a  large  scale.  For  Canada  to  de- 
fy the  whole  trend  of  our  time, 
and  revert  to  a  peasant  economy, 
simply  to  get  more  population, 
seems  uncertain  of  success. 

(2)  Peasant  concentration  in- 
volves poverty  beyond  anything 
we  can  conceive.  The  value  of 
all  the  agricultural  output  of 
Hungary,  per  capita  of  the  rural 
population,  is  only  about  sixty 
dollars  a  year,  and  the  standard 
of  life  is  catastrophically  low. 
Scientific  agriculture,  including 
the  extensive  use  of  fertilizers, 
may  raise  the  output  per  acre 
considerably,  as  in  the  case  of 
Denmark,  but  one  must  remem- 
ber that  in  Denmark  over  four 
fifths  of  the  arable  land  is  in 
farms  of  over  25  acres  each. 
(Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  1943, 
ed.,  vii,  205.) 

(3)  Climate  is  another  factor. 
The  short  growing  season  limits, 
in  most  of  Canada,  the  possibili- 
ties of  the  crop  year;  while  the 
severity  of  our  winters  calls  for 
considerable  expense  in  fuel  and 
heavy   clothing. 


47 


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(4)  Accessibility  to  markets  is 
a  vital  factor.  It  is  scant  comfort 
to  a  man  on  virgin  soil  in  the  re- 
mote Peace  River  country  to  get 
100  bushels  of  oats  to  the  acre  if 
it  costs  him  37  cents  a  bushel 
merely  to  get  it  out  as  far  as  Ed- 
monton. Or  again,  were  the 
black  soil  of  the  Red  River  Val- 
ley close  to  New  York,  it  might 
support  ten  times  its  present 
number  of  market-gardeners. 
But  geography  has  doomed  it  to 
a  restricted  local  market.  It  is 
not  a  matter  of  time,  but  of  costs. 
Aeroplanes  could  rush  Manitoba 
lettuces  and  celery  to  New  York 
in  a  single  morning;  but  the  ex- 
pense of  shipping,  whether  by 
plane,  train  or  truck,  will  always 
be  many  times  that  of  shipping 
from  New  Jersey  or  Connecti- 
cut. Intensive  agriculture  re- 
quires proximity  to  large  centres 
of  population,  and  that  condition 
is  lacking  in  the  case  of  Canada's 
agricultural  areas. 

Certain  blue-eyed  optimists, 
however,  have  no  misgivings. 
All  you  have  to  do  is  to  pour  in 
new  population  and  it  will  create 
new  wealth  and  new  demands 
for  goods.  One  such  opinion  that 
I  have  on  file  reads:  'The  great 
American  depression  was  due  in 
part  to  the  closing  of  the  immi- 
gration gates.  There  might  not 
have  been  so  much  unemploy- 
ment had  a  steady  stream  of  im- 


migrants, worth  perhaps  $10,000 
apiece  on  the  hoof,  come  into  the 
country  between  1920  and  1929, 
creating  immediately  a  demand 
for  housing,  foodstuffs,  cotton- 
goods,  etc' 

This  is  an  egregious  error.  The 
potential  value  of  each  newcomer 
may  indeed  be  $10,000  to  the 
country;  but  unless  he  can  earn 
wages,  or  create  immediate 
wealth  on  the  land,  or  bring  capi- 
tal with  him,  his  effective  de- 
mand for  goods  and  services  is 
precisely  nil.  He  creates  a  de- 
mand for  nothing  but  relief.  He 
can  no  more  contribute  to  the 
development  of  the  national 
wealth  than  can  a  billion  tons  of 
molybdenite  in  the  heart  of  Un- 
gava,  a  thousand  miles  from  a 
railway.  If  he  represents  labour 
in  excess  of  the  country's  econo- 
mic development — determined  by 
resources,  capital  enterprise  and 
effective  markets — then  he  will 
fail  to  find  employment  and  will 
prove  a  sheer  loss  to  the  Domi- 
nion. 

For  the  proof  of  this,  let  me  ap- 
peal to  the  actual  history  of  im- 
migration into  Canada.  The 
simple  truth  is  that  during  the 
80  years  from  1851  to  1931  the 
total  immigration  into  Canada 
was  almost  exactly  the  same  as 
the  total  emigration  out  from 
Canada,  chiefly  to  the  United 
States.     The  late  M.  C.  MacLean 


48 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


fy'" 


mm 


has  shown  that  if  there  had  been 
neither  immigration  nor  emigra- 
tion during  those  years,  our  own 
natural  increase  would  have  giv- 
en us  a  population  at  least  as 
large  as  we  have  today.  The  net 
result  of  the  immigration  was 
the  replacement  of  a  considerable 
number  of  native  Canadians  by 
newcomers  from  abroad. 

Over  the  period  as  a  whole, 
Canada  always  had  twice  as 
many  new  settlers  available  as 
she  could  absorb.  For  example, 
in  the  decade  1871-1881,  the  im- 
migration doubled,  but  only  one 
immigrant  in  five  remained  in 
Canada.  In  1881-1891,  the  immi- 
gration increased  two  and  a  half 
times,  but  only  one  in  nine  re- 
mained. In  the  decade  1891- 
1901,  six  out  of  every  ten  immi- 
grants left  Canada.  In  our  most 
phenomenal  period  of  influx, 
1901-1911,  some  1,848,000  entered 
Canada,  but  the  emigration  was 
around  one  million.  Between 
1921  and  1931,  we  received  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half  new  citizens,  but 
lost  a  million  and  a  quarter. 
During  the  whole  period  from 
1851  to  1931,  we  lost  6,110,000 
people  to  the  United  States,  of 
whom  1,740,000  were  native  Ca- 
nadians and  4,370,000  were  im- 
migrants who  had  found  it  im- 
posible  to  get  a  foothold  in  our 
economic  life.  The  U.S.A.,  with 
6  times  our  farmland,   40   times 


our  coal  output,  50  times  our  iron 
output,  not  to  mention  70  times 
our  available  savings,  was  ap- 
parently able  to  handle  all  our 
surplus. 

A  minor  variant  of  this  story  is 
to  be  found  in  the  case  of  the 
Prairie  Provinces,  to  which  some 
of  our  optimists  would  glibly  as- 
sign a  potential  population  of 
forty  millions.  Unfortunately, 
the  Prairie  Provinces  are  today 
failing  to  provide  even  for  such 
population  as  they  have.  From 
1921  to  1936,  some  632,000  per- 
sons came  into  the  Prairie  Pro- 
vinces from  outside  of  Canada 
and  the  natural  increase  was 
522,171.  As  the  actual  increase 
in  population  was  only  458,809, 
there  was  an  evident  loss  of  al- 
most 700,000  persons  who  were 
unable  to  make  a  living  in  the 
West. 

Let  me  reiterate  the  sad  truth 
that  emerges  from  our  past  ex- 
perience of  immigration.  At  no 
time  in  the  past  90  years,  apart 
from  the  temporary  emergencies 
of  war,  has  Canada  ever  had  a 
shortage  of  manpower.  We  have 
always  had  more  people  than  we 
could  digest.  Natural  increase 
would  have  brought  us  at  least 
the  population  that  we  have.  As 
fast  as  new  water  ran  into  our 
little  millpond,  just  as  fast  the 
water  spilled  over  the  dam  and 
ran  away. 


•wl-w1 


wmiz 


SEPTEMBER,  1944 


(Continued   next  month) 


49 


TV.. 


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3ft- 


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An  Open  Letter  to  Labor 


THIS  first  total  war  in  world  history  is  taking  another  turn.  It  appears 
that  this  turn  is  for  the  better,  and  we  are  all  glad  of  it.  Every  family 
with  a  representative  in  the  Armed  Forces  is  eagerly  awaiting  the  day  of 
final   Victory. 

With  the  approaching  doom  of  the  enemy  on  the  fighting  front  we  must  ex- 
pect retrenchment  in  industry  on  the  home  front.  Today  we  are  being  forced  to 
face  the  'beginning  of  the  end'  and  a  certain  number  of  employees  are  being  re- 
leased from  war  industries  in  this  country. 

Technocracy  has  no  desire  to  raise  unnecessary  anxiety  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  are  laid  off,  or  those  who  at  the  moment  remain.  But  there  are  certain  as- 
pects of  importance  that  we  feel  should  be  given  your  careful  attention. 

Among  these  is  the  question  of  future  security  for  labor  —  and  all  citizens 
of  North  America  —  with  special  reference  to  the  immediate  postwar  period, 
which  may  not  be  long  delayed.  For  years  before  the  present  war  Technocracy 
had  pointed  out  the  cold,  hard  fact  that  unemployment,  due  to  the  increasing 
use  and  efficiency  of  machines,  had  become  a  national  insoluble  problem  under 
existing  methods  of  social  operation.  Do  you  remember  the  bread  lines,  the  re- 
lief rolls,  and  the  freight  trains?   So,  too,  does  Technocracy. 

This  war  has  forced  business  to  install  more  and  more  machinery  owing  to 
the  shortage  of  manpower.  After  the  war  the  problem  of  jobs  will  assume  an 
even  greater  importance  in  our  minds  —  and  stomachs  —  than  before.  What 
is  the  answer?  Have  you  heard  of  any  government  program  that  will  guarantee 
you  economic  security  after  this  emergency  is  over?  If  you  have,  you  are  one 
up  on  Technocracy.  All  we  have  heard  are  the  cries  for  the  preservation  of  'free 
enterprise'  —  the  freedom  to  chisel,  the  freedom  to  profit,  the  freedom  to  main- 
tain artificial  scarcity,  the  freedom  to  operate  for  private  benefit  against  the 
public  welfare,  the  freedom  to  have  poverty,  slums,  crime,  waste,  and  malnu- 
trition, the  freedom  to  starve. 

The  present  small  layoff  is  but  a  glimpse  of  what  is  to  come.  When  the  boys 
return  from  overseas  it  will  be  that  much  worse.  We  must  face  this  problem 
in  the  light  of  all  the  known  facts.  We  can  win  the  war  and  yet  lose  the  peace 
if  a  fascist  control  attempts  to  keep  production  down  and  scarcity  the  order 
of  the  day. 

Technocracy  has  but  one  question  to  ask  of  you: — 'What  are  YOU  going  to 
do  about  it?'  It  is  your  problem,  but  we  are  ready  to  give  you  the  answer. 
INVESTIGATE  TECHNOCRACY  NOW— BEFORE  IT  IS  TOO  LATE. 


50 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


;■      I 


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TECHNOCRACY 


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WHAT? 

Technocracy  is  the  only  North 
American  social  movement  with  a 
North  American  program  which  has 
become  widespread  on  this  Continent. 
It  has  no  affiliation  with  any  other 
organization,  group,  or  association 
either  in  North  America  or  elsewhere. 

The  basic  unit  of  Technocracy  is 
the  chartered  Section  consisting  of  a 
minimum  of  25  members  and  running 
up  to  several  hundred. 

It  is  not  a  commercial  organization 
or  a  political  party;  it  has  no  finan- 
cial subsidy  or  endowment  and  has  no 
debts.  Technocracy  is  supported  en- 
tirely by  the  clues  and  donations  of 
its  own  members.  The  widespread 
activities  of  Technocracy  are  per- 
formed voluntarily;  no  royalties, 
commissions,  or  bonuses  are  paid,  and 
only  a  small  full-time  staff  receives 
subsistence  allowances.  The  annual 
dues  are  $6.00  which  are  paid  by  the 
member  to  his  local  Section. 

Members  wear  the  chromium  and 
vermilion  insignia  of  Technocracy — 
the  Monad,  an  ancient  generic  symbol 
signifying  balance. 

WHERE? 

There  are  units  and  members  of 
Technocracy  in  almost  every  State 
in  the  U.  S.  and  in  all  provinces  in 
Canada,  and  in  addition  there  are 
members  in  Alaska,  Hawaii,  Panama, 
Puerto  Rico,  and  in  numerous  other 
places  with  the  Armed  Forces. 

Members  of  Technocracy  are  glad 
to  travel  many  miles  to  discuss  Tech- 
nocracy's Victory  Program  with  any 
interested  people  and  Continental 
Headquarters  will  be  pleased  to  in- 
form anyone  of  the  location  of  the 
nearest  Technocracy  unit. 


WHEN? 

Technocracy  originated  in  the  win- 
ter of  1918-1919  when  Howard  Scott 
formed  a  group  of  scientists,  engi- 
neers, and  economists  that  became 
known  in  1920  as  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance— a  research  organization.  In 
1933  it  was  incorporated  under  the 
laws  of  the  State  of  New  York  as  a 
non-profit,  non-political,  non-sectari- 
an membership  organization.  In  1934, 
Howard  Scott,  Director-in-Chief,  made 
his  first  Continental  lecture  tour 
which  laid  the  foundations  of  the  pre- 
sent nation-wide  membership  organi- 
zation. Since  1934  Technocracy  has 
grown  steadily  without  any  spectacu- 
lar spurts,  revivals,  collapses,  or  re- 
births. This  is  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  press  has  generally  'held  the 
lid'  on  Technocracy,  until  early  in 
1942  when  it  made  the  tremendous 
'discovery'  that  Technocracy  had  been 
reborn  suddenly  full-fledged  with  all 
its  members,  headquarters,  etc.,  in 
full    swing! 

WHO? 

Technocracy  was  built  in  North 
America  by  North  Americans.  It  is 
composed  of  North  American  citizens 
of  all  walks  of  life.  Technocracy's 
membership  is  a  composite  of  all  the 
occupations,  economic  levels,  races, 
and  religions  which  make  up  this 
Continent.  Membership  is  open  only 
to  North  American  citizens.  Aliens, 
Asiatics,  and  politicians  are  not  eligi- 
ble. (By  politicians  is  meant  those 
holding  elective  political  office  or  ac- 
tive office  in  any  political  party.) 

Doctor,  lawyer,  storekeeper,  far- 
mer, mechanic,  teacher,  preacher,  or 
housewife — as  long  as  you  are  a  pa- 
triotic North  American — you  are  wel- 
come in  Technocracy. 


H.  G.  WELLS  ON  TECHNOCRACY 

'Essentially  that  was  a  soundly  scientific  effort  to  restate  economics  on 
a  purely  physical  basis.' 


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Europe  and  North  America 

EUROPE  has  neither  the  resources  nor  the  technological  equipment 
under  any  one  national  management  great  enough  to  compel 
fundamental  social  change.  Europe,  in  spite  of  its  over-population, 
poverty,  and  social  disparities,  is  not  driven  by  any  Force  Majeure 
in  its  production  of  physical  wealth  to  revolutionary  social  redesign. 
Clashes  of  national  groups,  economic  interests,  and  religions  may  in- 
stitute many  political  changes  in  the  European  conglomerate.  Europe 
has  every  political  alternative  in  the  social  handbook  of  nations  except 
the  technological  production  and  distribution  of  abundance.  She  can  re- 
turn to  monarchies,  limited  and  absolute,  to  representative  republics, 
and  to  state-owned  dictatorships.  Europe  has  many  choices  of  pro- 
gressive gradualism  and  the  parliamentarism  of  philosophic  justifica- 
tion of  their  social  steady  state. 

North  America  has  no  alternatives.  North  America  cannot  indulge 
in  the  psychosis  of  fascism,  nor  can  this  Continent  return  to  the  neuro- 
sis of  an  economy  of  free  enterprise,  of  want  in  the  midst  of  plenty. 
Communism  is  endemic  to  the  U.S.S.R.,  but  communism  in  North 
America  would  be  so  far  to  the  right  that  it  would  be  a  bourgeois 
damming  of  our  destiny.  Tory  conservatism  and  laissez-faire  liberalism 
are  here  alike  useless.  Political  gradualism  in  North  America  would  be 
a  process  of  national  and  Continental  suicide.  North  America's  tech- 
nological equipment  is  battering  at  the  walls  of  this  Continent's  social 
institutions,  demanding  a  new  leadership  of  men  and  things.  America 
has  no  alternative.  We  on  this  Continent  face  either  anarchic  chaos  or 
the  installation  of  the  most  revolutionary  social  redesign  in  the  history 
of  man.  We  have  gone  so  far  that  we  cannot  go  back  to  anyone's  yes- 
terday. We  as  a  country  and  a  Continent,  and  as  a  people,  must  or- 
ganize an  orderly  march  to  the  technological  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  abundance  to  all.  Simultaneously,  America  faces  its  greatest 
historical  opportunity  or  disaster. 

— CHQ,  TECHNOCRACY  INC. 


I 


(Section  Stamp) 


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TECHNOCRACY    INC. 

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TECHNOCRACY 

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THE  ONLY  MAGAZINE  IN  CANADA  THAT  IS  PREPARING  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THIS 
COUNTRY  FOR  SOCIAL  CHANGE 


OCTOBER,  1944 


VANCOUVER,  B.C. 


No.  76 


— STAFF- 


Editor  Donald  Bruce 

Assistant  Editor   W.  D.   Ellwyn 

Assistant  Editor  ...Dorothy  Fearman 
Assistant  Editor  ....  H.  W.  Carpenter 


Business  Manager       H.  W.  Carpenter 

Circulation  Manager G.  H.  Connor 

Research  V.  A.  Knudsen 

Production  0.  G.  Lunde 


Editorial 3 

Domestic   Affairs 4 

Monopoly  Restricts  Penicillin 14 

Away    from   the    Land! 16 

Farming  Without  Soil  23 

The  Significance  of  Steep  Rock 24 

Canada's   Base   Metal   Production         30 

Postwar  Planning  by   Cartels 31 

Who  Wants  Eggs,   Anyway?        36 

Canada  and   Immigration   38 

'Business  as  a  System  of  Power'   43 

An  Open  Letter  to  Business 50 


Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349,  Techno- 
cracy Inc.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies  25  cents.  Twelve  issues  for  $2.50; 
six  issues  for  $1.25.  Bundle  rates  10  to  100,  20  cents  per  copy;  100  copies  or 
more,  19  cents  each.  Continental  Headquarters  of  Technocracy  Inc.  is  at  155 
E.  44th  St.,  New  York  17,  N.  Y.  Send  all  correspondence  and  manuscripts  and 
make  all  money  orders  payable  to  Technocracy  Digest,  625  West  Pender  St., 
Vancouver,  B.  C.  Entered  as  second  class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  Department, 
Ottawa.     Printed  in  Canada. 


FRONT  COVER 

Openhearth  furnaces  being  tapped  out  at  the  Stelco  Steel  Plant  in  Hamilton. 
Stelco  together  with  Algoma  of  Sault  Ste.  Marie  and  Dosco  of  Sydney  form  the 
Big  Three  of  Canadian  steel  production.  Overall  output  of  Canadian  steel  plants 
has  doubled  since  1939  placing  the  Dominion  in  fourth  position  as  a  steel  pro- 
ducer among  the  United  Nations,  led  by  the  U.S.,  Russia,  and  Britain.  Most 
spectacular  increase  has  been  in  the  production  of  alloy  steels,  many  of  them  re- 
quiring great  metallurgical  skill,  in  which  production  has  been  stepped  up  to 
five  times  the  pre-war  level.  (National  Film  Board  Photo) 


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MANY  people  wonder  why  Technocrats  do  not  enter  into  a  debate  about 
Technocracy.  These  persons  fail  to  understand  that  science  in  any  field — 
even  the  social  field — just  doesn't  operate  that  way.  The  criterion  gov- 
erning any  scientific  theory  is:  Does  it  fit  the  known  facts?  Either  it  does  or 
it  doesn't,  and  no  amount  of  cunning  rationalization  can  alter  the  situation. 

What  could  be  more  incongruous  than  Albert  Einstein  arguing  with  the  gen- 
eral public  as  to  the  validity  of  his  Theory  of  Relativity!  Every  scientist 
worthy  of  the  name  is  his  own  most  zealous  critic.  A  classic  example  is  to  be 
found  in  the  life  and  work  of  Charles  Darwin.  Darwin  spent  many  years  accu- 
mulating the  biological  evidence  that  enabled  him  to  formulate  his  Theory  of 
Evolution  through  Natural  Selection — but  he  didn't  stop  there.  The  rest  of  his 
life  he  tried  to  turn  up  new  facts  which  would  disprove  his  theory. 

Similarly  with  Howard  Scott's  Theory  of  Energy  Determinants.  Technocrats 
do  not  accept  this  theory  blindly;  instead  they  try  to  uncover  facts  which 
might  invalidate  it. 

This  scientific  attitude  causes  Technocrats  to  avoid  philosophic  arguments 
with  other  organizations,  but  it  does  not  mean  that  they  refuse  to  analyze 
social  programs  other  than  their  own.  In  the  interests  of  all  people  of  North 
America,  they  make  objective  appraisals  of  what  other  groups  have  to  offer 
the  citizens  of  this  Continent. 

In  contrast  to  Technocracy's  calmly  analytical  approach,  these  other  groups 
slander  each  other  and  Technocracy  in  a  mad  scramble  for  the  political  spoils 
of  the  Price  System.  The  less  they  have  to  offer,  the  more  mud  they  sling,  in  a 
desperate  effort  to  camouflage  the  impotence  of  their  own  program. 

In  the  July  issue  of  Technocracy  Digest  we  presented  a  documentary  survey 
of  Le  Bloc  Populaire — fascism  in  Canada — that  was  given  widespread  distribu- 
tion right  across  the  country  into  Quebec. 

In  September  we  examined  the  facts  behind  the  communist  sellout — but  this 
was  not  in  reply  to  the  attack  on  Technocracy  in  The  People,  semi-official  or- 
gan of  the  Labor  Progressive  Party.  It  was  not  tit  for  tat.  Some  of  the  material 
was  prepared  long  before  the  article  appeared  in  The  People,  and  it  would  have 
been  published  whether  or  not  the  LPP  had  slung  mud  at  Technocracy. 

In  an  early  issue  we  shall  be  printing  an  objective  analysis  of  what  the  CCF 
has  to  offer  the  people  of  Canada  at  this  most  pregnant  moment  in  our  national 
history.  This  also  is  not  to  be  taken  as  a  reply  to  the  recent  attack  on  Technoc- 
racy in  the  CCF  News. 

Technocrats  have  endless  patience  in  explaining  Technocracy  to  those  who  are 
biologically  capable  of  becoming  conditioned  to  a  scientific  approach  to  social 
phenomena,  but  we  have  no  time  to  waste  on  persons  who  want  to  indulge  in 
futile  philosophic  argument. 

We  don't  ask  people  to  believe  what  we  say;  all  we  ask  is  that  they  at  least 
be  scientific  enough  to  investigate  thoroughly  the  only  organization' in  North 
America  that  has  the  blueprint  of  a  new  social  mechanism  which  will  provide 
security,  abundance,  and  leisure  to  all  the  citizens  of  this  Continent. 

—The  Editor 


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Domestic  Affairs 


IN  July  1944,  the  United  States 
of  America,  with  13  million  of 
her  most  able-bodied  citizens 
withdrawn  from  production  and 
placed  in  the  Armed  Forces  and 
their  civilian  auxiliaries,  is  en- 
gaged in  turning  out  the  greatest 
annual  production  of  physical 
wealth  ever  known,  56%  of 
which  is  going  into  war  directly 
and  through  lend-lease.  The 
United  States  of  America,  which 
has  (according  to  Quentin  Rey- 
nolds) over  8  million  Americans 
abroad  fighting  for  victory,  is 
wallowing  at  home  in  the  gravy 
trough  of  prosperity  of  the  great- 
est all-time  business  boom. 

The  United  States  of  America 
has  increased  its  technological 
capacity  to  such  an  extent  that  in 
less  than  two  years  of  wide-open 
operation,  war  production  con- 
tracts have  had  to  be  cut  back, 
plants  have  had  to  be  shut  down 
and  reduced  because  we  were 
reaching  the  saturation  of  over- 
production in  our  war  materiel. 
World  War  II  is  not  great  enough 
to  absorb  the  continuous  full  load 
production  of  American  technol- 
ogy. 

The  people  of  the  United  States 
of  America  have  never  before 
been  so  prosperous,  so  fully  occu- 
pied,    so     completely     employed, 


and  at  the  same  time  so  com- 
pletely apathetic  to  anything  in 
their  own  future  except  more  of 
the  same.  Department  store  sales 
have  climbed  the  peaks  of  Himal- 
ayan totals.  Corporate  business  is 
reported  as  having  $37,800,- 
000,000  cash  in  demand  deposits 
in  United  States  banks.  The 
bangtails  are  running  before  the 
largest  paid  admissions  in  race- 
track history.  The  amounts  bet 
often  exceed  $3  million  in  a  single 
day  at  a  single  track.  Last  year 
(1943)  the  reported  total  of 
money  bet  through  pari-mutuel 
machines  in  the  State  of  New 
York  alone  was  $288  million;  this 
year  will  be  the  most  prosperous 
and  glamorous  year  in  the  history 
of  the  sport  of  kings.  In  spite  of 
rationed  gasoline,  insufficient 
rail  and  bus  transportation,  and 
the  great  demand  for  war  pro- 
duction, American  race  tracks 
will  be  jammed  with  over-flowing 
crowds  even  on  work  days.  The 
horse  races  can  provide  those 
fortunate  masses  of  our  people 
with  an  exciting  and  glorified 
escapism  from  the  horrid  realities 
of  war,  and  the  shuddering  pros- 
pects of  the  peace  to  come. 

Show  business  is  roaring  along 
in  high  gear  playing  to  capacity 
houses  sold  out  weeks  and  even 


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months  in  advance.  Any  produ- 
cer who  can  collect  a  crowd  of 
hams  and  a  script  with  a  few 
moronic  belly  laughs  interspersed 
with  maudlin  sentimentality  and 
a  few  outworn  cliches  can  enjoy 
a  box  office  sellout  and  satisfy 
his  audiences  with  an  easy,  com- 
fortable escapism  at  high  prices 
per  seat  at  every  performance. 
The  theatrical  profession  is  pro- 
testing that  it  is  being  worked  to 
death,  that  there  are  not  enough 
actors,  and  not  enough  theatres 
to  satiate  the  huge  American  de- 
mand for  a  nightly  trip  to  the 
escapist  world  of  the  never  never 
land.  Night  clubs,  up  until  the 
imposition  of  the  Cabaret  Tax, 
were  operating  in  the  lush  of  a 
gold  boom.  Since  the  Cabaret 
Tax  some  of  the  smaller  and  in- 
adequate night  clubs  have  closed 
their  doors,  while  the  real  hot 
spots  now  turn  them  away  in 
droves.  Our  better  bars  and  cafes 
have  even  developed  special  tech- 
niques in  order  to  handle,  not  the 
carriage  trade,  but  the  standees. 

Never  have  so  many  people  in 
any  period  of  the  world's  history 
purchased  so  many  diamonds,  so 
many  fur  coats,  and  so  much 
jewelry.  Never  have  the  banks  of 
any  nation  been  so  liquid  with  so 
many  billions  of  cash.  Never  has 
any  nation  bought  so  many  bonds 
— over  $83  billion  total  were  pur- 
chased     (complete     returns      on 

OCTOBER,  1944 


those  cashed  are  not  in  yet). 
Never  has  the  national  debt  of 
any  nation  risen  so  high  ($209 
billion),  and  it  is  due  to  rise  to 
still  greater  heights.  From  1933 
until  1943  the  money  in  circula- 
tion in  United  States  has  trebled 
in  volume.  The  total  circulation 
of  folding  money  in  United  States 
is  today  approximately  $21  bil- 
lion. It  is  significant  to  note  that 
from  May  1943,  and  more  parti- 
cularly in  1944,  the  issuance  of 
bills  of  large  denominations  has 
rapidly  increased,  that  is,  bills 
from  $50  to  $10,000.  It  is  reported 
that  more  than  32  million  $100 
bills  have  been  issued  and  are 
presumed  to  be  somewhere  in 
possession  of  citizens  of  the 
United  States  outside  of  their 
bank  deposits.  Almost  one  mil- 
lion $1,000  bills  have  likewise 
been  dispersed  amongst  the  pub- 
lic. It  is  reported  that  a  total  of 
$4  billion  in  big  bills  has  been 
issued,  of  which  only  a  minute 
percentage  of  the  $1,000  and  larg- 
er bills  are  used  for  bank  settle- 
ment. 

Never  has  the  public  of  United 
States  had  so  many  billions  cash 
money  on  deposit  in  the  banks 
of  our  country.  Never  has  the 
public  of  United  States  had  so 
many  billions  in  Government 
bonds  (the  equivalent  of  cash). 
And  never  has  the  more  fortun- 
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had  so  many  billions  in  the  safety 
deposit  boxes  and  the  home  safe 
deposits  such  as  mattresses  and 
other  upholstery.  We  should  nev- 
er forget  that  bills  of  large  denom- 
inations can  be  used  to  back  pic- 
tures and  paintings,  and  what 
noble  art  will  not  be  nobler  and 
greater  when  reflecting  a  backing 
of  thousand  dollar  bills.  What 
wallpaper  will  not  radiate  greater 
opulence  when  covering  a  wall 
that  is  first  papered  with  $100 
bills.  Such  rapid  increase  in  the 
issuance  of  bills  of  large  denom- 
inations denotes  an  increase  in 
the  cupidity  and  fear  of  the  fin- 
ancially well-to-do  of  our  citizens; 
cupidity  in  that  it  is  evidence  of 
the  intent  of  the  well-to-do  to 
evade  taxes  and  other  govern- 
mental obligations,  and  fear  in 
their  hoarding  of  available  cash 
that  is  ready  at  all  times  to  hedge 
against  the  exigencies  of  the 
future  by  either  the  purchase  of 
some  form  of  insurance  in  the 
economic  field,  or  by  the  un- 
traceable subsidization  of  politi- 
cal party  action  for  the  acquisi- 
tion of  social  insurance.  All  of 
these  constitute  evidences  of  na- 
tional hoarding,  illegality,  and 
individual  anarchy. 

In  any  national  economy  in 
which  social  change  is  becoming 
imminent,  the  first  indications  of 
anarchic  breakdown  always  ap- 
pear at  the  top  of  the  social  sys- 


tem in  the  ranks  of  that  system's 
opulent  and  powerful  economic 
ruling  class.  The  moment  that  the 
economic  beneficiaries  of  any  so- 
cial system  lose  faith  in  the  lead- 
ership of  that  system  and  in  that 
system's  economic  and  political 
stability,  they  inevitably  commit 
individual  anarchic  acts  com- 
bined with  illegal  activities  which 
are  in  themselves  distinct  evid- 
ences of  loss  of  faith  in  the  very 
system  of  which  they  have  been 
the  chief  exploiters.  Such  evid- 
ence exists  here  and  now  in  these 
United  States. 

The  days  of  5  cent  cotton  and 
25  cent  corn  have  vanished  in  the 
dim  past.  Agriculturally,  Canada 
and  United  States  are  turning  out 
an  ever-swelling  flood  of  farm 
products.  In  United  States  over 
two  million  have  left  the  farms; 
in  Canada  over  500,000.  And  yet 
the  farmers  of  both  nations,  while 
limited  in  their  ability  to  pur- 
chase farm  machinery,  have,  un- 
der the  impetus  of  high  prices 
and  fortuitous  climatic  condi- 
tions, drowned  their  respective 
countries  in  wheat,  oats,  corn, 
chickens,  eggs,  pork,  and  beef. 
United  States  wheat  estimates  for 
the  1944  crop  year  promise  the 
greatest  wheat  crop  on  record — 
1,200,000,000  bushels.  Likewise,  if 
the  weather  holds,  the  corn  crop 
is  expected  to  exceed  3,200,- 
000,000  bushels.  The  other  grain 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


iWv.  ■ 


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■■ ■ 


crops  are  alike  reaching  new 
highs.  Canada  has  358  million 
bushels  of  wheat  in  terminal  and 
storage,  with  an  estimated  total 
of  602  million  bushels  from  last 
year's  crop.  The  first  wheat  har- 
vests of  the  United  States  in  west 
Texas,  Oklahoma,  and  Kansas 
are  pouring  in  with  record  crops. 
Storage  space  does  not  exist. 
Wheat  is  being  piled  high  in  the 
streets  of  many  towns  in  these 
areas.  Canada  and  United  States 
have  reached  a  record  high  in  the 
number  of  chickens,  pigs,  and 
beef  cattle  on  the  farms  of  both 
countries.  The  total  number  of 
farms  in  both  Canada  and 
United  States  have  declined. 
The  total  farm  population  on  the 
farms  of  both  countries  has  seri- 
ously declined  but,  in  spite  of 
both  declines,  the  farms  of  Can- 
ada and  United  States  are  pour- 
ing out  all-time  record  volumes 
of  farm  produce  with  the  private 
enterprise  and  respective  govern- 
ments of  both  nations  totally  un- 
prepared to  handle  the  agricul- 
tural situation  of  the  coming  sea- 
son. 

Storage  space  in  United  States 
is  for  all  practical  purposes  in  ex- 
cess of  87  percent  filled  according 
to  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
reports  of  mid-July.  Lard,  eggs, 
and  chickens  jam  our  storage 
space  to  overflowing.  Less  than 
two    months   ago   the   War   Food 


Administration  of  United  States, 
as  reported  in  the  New  York 
Times,  seriously  proposed  that 
5,000  tons  a  month  of  lard  be 
made  into  soap  and  that  the  said 
soap  be  shipped  to  Great  Britain, 
that  each  cake  of  soap  in  the 
5,000  tons  be  wrapped  in  a  pro- 
paganda leaflet,  and  that  the  Uni- 
ted States  and  British  air  forces 
drop  these  thousands  of  tons  a 
month  in  a  soap  blitz  on  the 
enemy-occupied  territory  of  Eur- 
ope, in  order  to  relieve  the  con- 
gested storage  of  greater  New 
York  and  the  eastern  seaboard 
and  to  make  room  for  the  incom- 
ing egg  crop.  What  a  blitz!  Sir 
Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  that  great 
author  of  detective  fiction,  used 
to  have  his  famous  character, 
Sherlock  Holmes,  say  'Quick, 
Watson,  the  needle!'  If  Sir  Ar- 
thur Conan  Doyle  were  living 
today,  he  would  realize  only  too 
well  that  no  surcease  could  be 
obtained  from  anything  as  small 
as  a  needle  and  therefore  his 
famous  character  would  be  made 
to  say  'Quick,  Watson,  the  fire 
hose!' 

The  farmers  of  both  nations 
are  wallowing  in  the  greatest 
farm  income  of  our  national  his- 
tory. The  farm  subsidies  and 
crop  guarantees  and  ceilings  have 
created  the  most  profitable  pa- 
triotism in  agricultural  history, 
with  the  result  that  a  wild  infla- 


■■■■■ 

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OCTOBER,  1944 


7. 


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■■■■■■■■■■I 


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tionary  boom  in  farm  land  values 
has  been  on  for  some  time.  In 
some  areas  the  values  have  risen 
three  to  four  hundred  percent. 
This  is  not  only  due  to  transac- 
tions amongst  farmers  but  also 
to  a  great  flood-tide  of  idle  capi- 
tal seeking  a  quick  speculative 
return.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
of  corporations  and  individuals 
who  never  saw  a  farm  or  a  cow 
have  bought  themselves  in  on  the 
inflationary  farm  land  boom.  If 
it  continues,  there  will  be  migra- 
tory movements  of  bought  out 
well-to-do  farmers  and  their  fa- 
milies moving  from  the  farms  to 
the  salubrious  climate  of  Califor- 
nia or  elsewhere,  to  loaf  in  the 
sun  as  successful  components  of 
a  new  leisure  class  born  of  this 
war.     California,   here  we  come! 

The  war  years  combined  with 
the  previous  labor  legislation  of 
the  Roosevelt  Administration 
have  resulted  in  a  tremendous 
growth  in  all  labor  union  mem- 
bership. The  basic  forty-hour 
week,  combined  with  time  and 
one-half  and  double  time  for 
overtime,  with  the  enforced  la- 
bor union  contracts,  have  erected 
the  labor  unions  to  a  gigantic 
stature  similar  to  the  large  cor- 
porate enterprise  of  the  nation. 
Millions  of  dues-paying  members 
have  poured  millions  of  dollars  a 
month  into  the  coffers  of  labor 
union  treasuries.     The  AF  of  L, 


the  CIO,  and  the  Railroad  Bro- 
therhoods have  become  identical 
in  size  and  scope  to  the  inter- 
national corporations  that  oper- 
ate simultaneously  in  both  Cana- 
da and  United  States.  Not  only 
has  the  structure  of  the  labor 
unions  taken  on  the  character- 
istics of  corporate  enterprise,  but 
the  executives  of  our  larger  labor 
unions  have  by  their  habituated 
action  patterns  developed  physio- 
logical characteristics  similar  to 
those  of  the  higher  executives  of 
corporate  enterprise.  Just  as  the 
higher  executives  of  corporate 
enterprise  get  thick  behind  the 
ears  and  take  on  that  well-dress- 
ed, well-fed  look  of  the  success- 
ful man,  our  labor  union  leaders 
of  the  higher  rank  indulge  in  the 
sincerest  form  of  flattery  to  cor- 
porate enterprise  in  that  they  too 
become  fat  behind  the  ears  and 
develop  that  well-fed,  well-dress- 
ed look;  they  too  belong  to  coun- 
try clubs  and  are  photographed 
playing  their  round  of  golf,  while 
others  imitate  Mr.  Henry  Ford 
and  go  in  for  the  collection  of 
Americana  and  other  antiques. 
They  too  attend  conferences, 
political  caucuses,  and  political 
conventions.  They  have  moved  up 
from  the  back  room  of  the  saloon 
to  the  smoke  filled  suite  of  one 
of  our  better  hotels. 

Corporate  business  has  domin- 
ated the  political  parties  of  the 


8 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


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United  States  since  Lincoln  as 
the  back  seat  driver  behind  the 
scenes.  It  is  only  just  and  meet 
that,  as  labor  unions  take  on  the 
physiological  characteristics  of 
their  hated  rivals,  they  too  should 
want  to  move  in  in  order  to  have 
some  share  in  the  political  skull- 
duggery of  the  nation  and,  of 
course,  to  be  able  to  proclaim  to 
their  membership  that  they  are 
aggressively  fighting  the  battles 
of  labor  in  the  political  field  as 
well  as  the  industrial.  Political 
government  in  United  States  and 
Canada  and  corporate  enterprise 
were  long  ago  convinced  of  the 
necessity  of  organized  labor  be- 
ing consolidated  into  two  or  three 
immense  international  trustifica- 
tions on  the  basis  that  it  was  poli- 
tically and  economically  more 
feasible  to  negotiate  with  the 
small  number  of  high  officials  of 
two  or  three  labor  trusts  than  it 
would  be  to  deal  with  the  im- 
mense number  of  officials  of  25,- 
000  or  more  separate  and  uncon- 
solidated labor  enterprises.  A 
trust  in  corporate  enterprise  al- 
ways prefers  to  deal  with  another 
trust  in  its  own  field  of  endeavor, 
or  with  another  trust  in  any  field 
of  endeavor.  Trusts  are  always 
so  mutually  understanding  of 
each  other's  mutual  benefit. 
Therefore,  corporate  enterprise 
and  the  political  government  of 
United  States  and  Canada  passed 


the  necessary  enabling  legislation 
in  order  to  complete  the  required 
trustification   of  organized  labor. 

Technocracy  wishes  it  distinct- 
ly understood  that  it  is  in  no  way 
opposed  to  the  organization  of 
labor  by  unions  to  better  their 
wage,  working  conditions,  and 
stability  of  employment.  Tech- 
nocracy understands  only  too 
well  that,  as  long  as  corporate 
enterprise  dominates  our  econo- 
mic and  political  field  of  produc- 
tion, distribution,  and  employ- 
ment, it  is  endemic  that  labor 
unions  must  exist  as  a  bargaining 
agency  in  order  to  merchandise 
the  man-hours  of  its  labor  union 
membership  in  the  greatest  mar- 
ket at  the  highest  price. 

As  labor  unions  in  United 
States  and  Canada  approach  the 
stature  of  large-scale  corporate 
enterprise,  they  will  naturally 
attempt  to  assume  ambitions 
similar  to  those  that  have  been 
exercised  by  the  leaders  of  cor- 
porate enterprise  for  some  gen- 
erations past.  They  too  have 
found  out  that  millions  of  mem- 
bers and  millions  of  dollars  com- 
bined in  one  organization  im- 
mediately create  economic  and 
political  power,  and  the  greater 
the  economic  and  political  power 
created,  the  greater  will  be  the 
force  exercised  in  the  ,march  of 
events  in  order  to  beget  still 
greater  political     and     economic 


W 


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OCTOBER,  1944 


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power.  Organized  labor  in  Uni- 
ted States  and  Canada  during 
this  evolution  will  be  torn  be- 
tween two  alternatives:  whether 
to  follow  corporate  enterprise 
strictly  and  to  continue  to  func- 
tion solely  as  labor  organizations, 
while  behind  the  scenes  bringing 
pressure  on  respective  businesses 
and  areas  and  political  party 
delegates,  or  whether  to  evolve 
on  a  different  pathway,  namely 
the  creation  of  a  political  party 
solely  representative  of  Ameri- 
can labor  independent  of  and  in 
opposition  to  the  two  existing 
old-line  political  parties  of  Uni- 
ted States.  American  labor  un- 
ions in  spite  of  Samuel  Gompers' 
great  proclamation  that  labor 
unions  should  not  be  involved  in 
politics  have  always  been  involv- 
ed in  national  politics,  especially 
in  the  last  forty  years. 

The  CIO  Political  Action  Com- 
mittee is  a  well-financed  new  de- 
parture of  one  gigantic  labor  or- 
ganization as  a  pressure  lobby  to 
turn  the  heat  on  both  political- 
parties,  but  more  especially  on 
the  Democratic  Party  because  it 
is  the  party  at  present  in  power. 
Mr.  Westbrook  Pegler,  Mr. 
George  Sokolsky,  Mr.  Fulton 
Lewis  Jr.,  the  National  Associa- 
tion of  Manufacturers,  and  the 
Republican  Party  will  undoubt- 
edly scream  'Communism  and 
Bloody  Bolshevism!'  at  the  CIO 


Political  Action  Committee  and 
at  Roosevelt  and  the  Democratic 
Party  for  their  political  associa- 
tion with  this  'red  menace'  of  or- 
ganized American  labor.  Tech- 
nocrats across  this  Continent  will 
understand  these  charges  are  the 
usual  political  balderdash  and 
smear  campaigns  that  are  being 
thrown  into  the  national  political 
arena  in  order  to  create  confu- 
sion on  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  hand  to  cover  up  something 
far  more  deadly  than  the  pre- 
tended menace  of  the  supposedly 
communist  element  in  the  CIO 
Political  Action  Committee. 

The  1944  Conventions  of  the 
Republican  and  Democratic  Par- 
ties have  already  passed  into  his- 
tory although  both  of  them  have 
failed  to  make  history  by  .any 
intentional  act.  Of  the  two  Con- 
ventions, the  Democratic  was  by 
far  the  most  vociferous  and  by 
arrangement  drew  the  biggest 
crowd.  Both  the  Republican  and 
Democratic  Party  Conventions 
loudly  proclaimed  their  patriot- 
ism and  their  forthright  convic- 
tion that  only  they  could  lead 
the  nation  to  victory. 

They  both  alike  proclaimed  that 
they  stood  four  square  and  that 
the  United  States  could  obtain  an 
abiding  peace  only  through  their 
leadership.  The  speakers  of  both 
party  conventions  were  loud  and 
long   in   their    exhortations    that 


10 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


'^■GHX 


■ 


1Kb 

m    -  mm 

HEHi 

■■H 

■  I 


■ 


just  recognition  and  reward 
should  be  provided  for  the  re- 
turning veterans  of  our  Armed 
Forces.  The  speakers  at  each 
Convention  made  the  patriotic 
play-up  of  giving  much  time  and 
many  words  to  the  GI  Joes,  and 
each  party  vied  with  the  other  in 
bestowing  the  gratitude  of  a 
beneficent  nation  upon  its  fight- 
ing men.  The  platforms  of  both 
parties  deal  chiefly  with  a  state- 
ment of  vague  abstractions  at 
home  and  sweeping  generalities 
and  gestures  of  generosity  to 
every  place  on  the  globe  except 
the  Continent  of  North  America. 

Not  once  did  either  the  Demo- 
crats or  the  Republicans  in  their 
Chicago  Conventions  mention 
fascism.  Apparently  neither  the 
Democrats  nor  the  Republicans 
realize  that  a  war  is  being  fought 
around  the  globe  to  defeat  the 
armies  of  the  axis  pact  of  fascism, 
a  war  wherein  thousands  of  Am- 
ericans have  already  fought  and 
died  that  fascism  shall  be  swept 
from  the  face  of  the  earth.  No 
speaker  on  the  floor  of  either 
Convention  exhorted  his  fellow 
delegates  to  fight  the  war  against 
fascism  to  final  victory.  Anyone 
listening  to  the  radio  speeches  of 
each  Convention  would  have 
been  given  only  one  impression, 
that  United  States  was  fighting 
World  War  II  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose  of   making   the   world    safe 


for  free  enterprise. 

Never  have  political  parties  in 
any  nation  had  such  a  golden  op- 
portunity to  present  to  their 
people  a  designed  strategy  for 
the  conduct  of  national  affairs  as 
have  the  Republicans  and  the 
Democrats  in  their  Chicago  Con- 
ventions. And  never  have  two 
great  political  parties  so  utterly 
and  completely  muffed  their  his- 
torical opportunities.  The  Re- 
publicans in  their  seance  at  Chi- 
cago dragged  Herbert  Hoover  out 
of  the  doghouse  to  have  him  con- 
firm in  measured  language  the 
dead  conservatism  of  the  Repub- 
lican Party's  heyday  of  the 
1920's.  Senator  Robert  Taft  in- 
toned the  Republican  platform  in 
that  flat  dry  Ohio  monotone.  His 
delivery  was  so  flat  and  the  plat- 
form so  long  that  the  delegates 
and  audience  very  nearly  went 
to  sleep  for  the  night.  The  Re- 
publicans were  careful,  as  were 
the  Democrats,  not  to  guarantee 
full  employment  or  full  produc- 
tion or  a  higher  standard  of  liv- 
ing in  these  United  States;  in  fact 
the  Republican  Party  in  conven- 
tion assembled  arrived  at  that 
wonderful  conclusion  where  they 
guaranteed  the  citizens  of  United 
States  exactly  nothing.  The  poli- 
tical gutless  wonders  of  the  twen- 
tieth century! 

The  Democratic  Party  Conven- 
tion in  Chicago  blasted  its  way 


2P3 


Uryrrfwr 


■ 


MjBja 


OCTOBER,  1944 


11 


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over  more  radio  stations  than  its 
competitor;  in  fact,  on  every 
station  throughout  the  Conven- 
tion, the  American  public  had  no 
alternative  if  it  turned  on  its 
radio  other  than  to  be  shellshock- 
ed  by  the  greatest  flood  of  noisy 
nonsense  that  has  ever  come  over 
the  air  in  this  good  old  USA.  The 
Democratic  Convention  made 
one  record  that  exceeds  all  oth- 
ers, a  record  of  the  most  disgust- 
ing exhibition  of  machine  party 
politics  polishing  to  a  terazzo 
finish  the  moronity  of  its  national 
delegates.  Even  the  Republicans 
could  not  reach  this  great  height, 
but  we  must  not  forget  that  the 
Republicans  might  have  been 
able  to  equal  the  democratic  ex- 
hibition if  they  had  been  the 
party  that  had  been  in  power  for 
twelve  years.  Vice-President 
Wallace,  the  representative  of 
progressive  liberalism  in  the 
Democratic  Party,  supported  by 
midwest  agrarian  progressives, 
intellectual  liberals,  labor  gener- 
ally, and  the  CIO  Political  Action 
Committee  in  particular,  was 
eliminated  as  a  political  contend- 
er in  the  1944  elections  because 
his  party,  the  Democratic  Party, 
had  gone  reactionary.  Fascism 
was  going  down  to  defeat  on  the 
battlefields  of  the  world  chiefly 
before  the  onrushing  Red  Army. 
But  what  could  be  more  subtle 
than  if  while  fascism  was  being 


12 


defeated  on  the  battlefields  of 
Europe  and  Asia,  it  could  move 
into  an  under  cover  political  vic- 
tory in  United  States. 

The  Democratic  Party  of  the 
Roosevelt  New  Deal  is  a  party 
composed  of  minorities  of  racial, 
religious,  and  economic  divergen- 
cies. It  numbers  among  its  com- 
posite parts  organized  labor  with 
the  exception  of  John  L.  Lewis 
and  theUnited  Mine  Workers;  the 
old-line,  white,  protestant,  south- 
ern Democrat;  the  agrarian  and 
small-business,  white,  protestant, 
middle  west  progressive;  the 
negro  vote  (mostly  of  the  north); 
and  the  many  racial  language 
blocs  such  as  the  Italian-Ameri- 
can, the  Polish-American,  Slo- 
venian-American, Slovakian- 
American,  Croatian  -  American, 
and  others.  The  records  indicate 
that  in  the  three  previous  elec- 
tions of  the  Roosevelt  Adminis- 
tration, the  Democratic  Party  of 
the  Roosevelt  New  Deal  has  re- 
ceived 90  percent  of  the  Roman, 
Catholic  vote  of  United  States 
and  91  percent  of  the  Jewish 
vote,  with  at  least  a  majority  vote 
of  the  other  racial  language  blocs. 

Never  in  political  party  history 
of  United  States  has  the  public 
witnessed  such  a  bare-faced  exhi- 
bition of  the  machine  taking  over 
a  political  party  as  was  witnessed 
at  the  Convention  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Political  Party  of  1944.  The 

TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


IIIIH 


A'- 


■ 


■ 


H 


Bl 


state  machines  of  Massachusetts, 
Rhode  Island,  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Illinois,  and  of  Missouri 
steam-rollered  the  Democratic 
Convention.  The  State  machine 
of  Massachusetts  is  the  O'Con- 
nell  -  Walsh  -  Curley  -  MacCor- 
mack;  of  New  York,  the  Farley- 
Flynn-Tammany;  of  New  Jersey, 
the  Hague;  and  of  Illinois,  the 
Kelly.  The  irony  of  all  this  is 
that  Senator  Truman,  a  stooge 
politician  of  the  ex-Pendergast 
machine  of  Missouri,  a  mason  and 
a  baptist,  was  steam-rollered  into 
the  Vice-Presidential  nomination 
by     the     state     machines.     The 


leadership  of  these  machines  is 
almost  solely  Roman  Catholic, 
and  the  delegates  of  these  state 
machines  are  mostly  Roman 
Catholic.  The  irony  is  that  the 
Roman  Catholic  political  machin- 
ery of  the  Democratic  Party  as- 
serted its  ascendency  at  Chicago 
over  the  entire  party.  The  Ameri- 
can counterpart  of  the  European 
Front  Populaire  is  here.  The 
Front  Populaire  has  taken  over 
the  Democratic  Party  of  these 
United  States,  and  simultaneous- 
ly Archbishop  Spellman  arrived 
in  Rome. 

— CHQ,  Technocracy  Inc. 


tmi 


Postwar  Planners  Please  Note! 


■ 


if  IN  THE  LONG  RUN  it  makes  little  difference  whether  the  end  of  the 
war  brings  a  year  or  two  of  psuedo  prosperity  followed  by  a  depression,  or 
the  depression  starting  immediately  after  the  close  of  the  war.  That  history 
will  repeat,  and  that  the  coming  depression  will  be  much  worse  than  that  of 
the  thirties,  very  few  really  informed  people  will  deny  .... 

Due  to  improved  machinery  and  improved  methods  in  production  the  need 
for  manpower,  after  the  war,  will  be  much  less  than  before.  Now,  Mr.  Con- 
gressman, put  yourself  in  the  place  of  these  workers  who  have  been  enjoying 
a  good  income  through  the  war,  and  visualize  their  predicament  and  their 
feelings  when  they  are  notified  that  their  services  will  no  longer  be  required. 
Visualize  the  resentment  of  the  colored  people  who  will  be  asked  to  step  aside 
in  favor  of  the  white  workers.  The  coming  depression,  Mr.  Congressman,  will 
be  packed  with  TNT.  — Simplified  Economics,  August  1944 


lis 


if  THE  COLLAPSE  of  Germany  today  would  find  us  totally  unprepared  for 
the  problems  facing  us.  To  convert  to  full  production  and  employment  in 
peace  we  must  find  15  million  more  jobs  than  were  available  in  1939.  We 
must  produce  at  least  60  to  70  percent  more  than  we  produced  in  1939.  If 
we  plan  only  for  prewar  levels  of  production  we  shall  fail.  If  we  do  not 
plan  for  full  employment  any  other  plans  we  make  will  be  swept  away  in  a 
tide  of  unemployment  and  depression. 

— Senator  Harley  M.  Kilgore  and  Rep.  Emanuel  Celler 


OCTOBER,  1944 


13 


<'*i 


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l^liliiiiiHlilH 


Monopoly  Restricts  Penicillin 


THE  discovery  of  Penicillin 
focuses  attention  on  the 
best  and  worst  of  our  civilization. 
On  the  one  hand  we  see  what 
modern  scientific  research  can  do 
for  humanity — even  in  the  midst 
of  the  most  inhuman  war  in 
history. 

On  the  other  hand  we  see  how 
selfish  interests  pounce  upon  the 
new  discovery,  try  to  corner  it 
for  themselves,  try  to  keep  it 
scarce  and  hence  costly  to  the 
public  and  profitable  to  them- 
selves. 

Dyson  Carter  of  Winnipeg  has 
just  written  one  of  the  most  ex- 
plosive articles  ever  published  in 
Canada  on  this  subject.  It  ap- 
pears in  the  August  issue  of  the 
National  Home  Monthly.  The 
only  unfortunate  thing  about  this 
article  is  that  it  did  not  appear 
while  Parliament  was  still  in  ses- 
sion. For  it  makes  charges  of 
such  gravity  that  they  warrant 
immediate  explanation  by  the 
government. 

Here  is  an  indication  of  what 
Penicillin  is  doing  for  humanity. 
When  Carter  wrote  his  article  he 
cited,        among       the        miracles 


Reprinted  from  the  VANCOUVER 
SUN  by  kind  permission  of  the  au- 
thor, Elmore  Philpott. 


wrought  by  this  greatest  of  all 
known  germ  killers,  the  three  in- 
jection cure  of  gonorrhea.  To- 
day's newspaper  despatches  tell 
of  nine  cures  out  of  ten  treated 
cases  using  single  injections  of 
this   wonder   drug. 

More  accurately,  Penicillin  is 
not  a  drug.  It  is  just  a  refine- 
ment of  granny's  old  bread  and 
milk  poultice. 

Penicillin  has  worked  cures 
which  can  only  be  called  amaz- 
ing. More  people  know  how  army 
doctors  have  used  Penicillin  to 
prevent  blindness  from  infections 
which  would  surely  have  caused 
such  results  without  it.  Almost 
every  germ  disease  seems  to  be 
combatted  or  vanquished  by  this 
most  potent  of  all  germ  poisons. 

But  what  has  Penicillin  done 
already  is  but  a  fraction  of  what 
it  may  do.  Carter  writes  about 
an  experiment  conducted  a  few 
weeks  ago  by  a  young  U.S.  army 
corporal,  working  under  the 
direction  of  the  famous  man-and- 
wife  research  team,  Drs.  M.  R. 
and  W.  H.  Lewis.  Corporal  Corn- 
man  used  Penicillin  to  kill  malig- 
nant cancer  cells,  without  injur- 
ing the  surrounding  normal  body 
cells.  Everybody  concerned 
stresses  the  fact  that  this  is  not 


U 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


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a  cancer-  cure,  and  not  even  a 
helpful  treatment  at  present. 

The  production  of  Penicillin 
has  been  woefully  disappointing. 
In  March  1944,  the  U.S.  govern- 
ment held  a  conference  of  all 
concerned  to  see  what  could  be 
done  to  speed  production.  The 
reason  for  this  conference  was 
that,  even  if  production  quotas 
are  reached,  the  total  production 
for  North  America  this  year  will 
be  just  nine  pounds  per  day. 
Not  nine  thousand  pounds,  nor 
nine  hundred  pounds,  but  just 
nine  pounds. 

That  is,  any  child  could  hold 
in  his  hands  each  day  the  total 
production  of  the  precious  natur- 
al product  which  has  saved  more 
lives  and  misery  than  any  pre- 
vious   medical    discovery. 

Carter  says  flatly:  'There  is  no 
mystery  why  Penicillin  output  is 
hopelessly  inadequate.  It  is  be- 
cause this  life-saver  is  how  worth 
thirty-five  thousand  dollars  per 
pound,  and  will  stay  at  that  fan- 
tastic level  so  long  as  freedom  of 


manufacture  is     interfered     with 
by  restrictive  monopoly.' 

Only  two  plants  in  Canada  are 
allowed  to  produce  Penicillin. 
One  is  the  small  pilot  plant  of 
Connaught  Laboratories,  Toron- 
to, the  other  is  a  privately-oper- 
ated plant  in  Montreal,  which 
was  paid  for  by  public  funds. 

Last  October  the  Canadian 
Association  of  Pharmaceutical 
Manufacturers  unanimously  pro- 
tested restrictions  on  the  produc- 
tion of  this  substance.  Since  that 
time  various  institutions  in  the 
U.S.  have  broken  partly  through 
the  ring  of  restriction.  Two  doc- 
tors in  the  general  hospital  of  Al- 
legheny have  shown  that  by  a 
process  almost  simple  enough  for 
home  production  Penicillin  can 
be  turned  out  quickly  and  cheap- 
ly for  all  surgical  purposes. 

But  the  interests  which  see  the 
possibility  of  setting  up  one  of  the 
most  lucrative  combines  in  all 
history  are  not  beaten  yet. 

— Elmore  Philpott 


A  One  Shot  Cure  for  Gonorrhea 

if  NEW  YORK,  Sept.  1. — The  cure  of  gonorrhea  with  one  shot  of  penicillin, 
mixed  with  beeswax  in  peanut  oil,  was  announced  in  Science,  official  journal  of 
American  scientists. 

The  report  was  made  by  Capt.  Monroe  J.  Romansky  and  George  E.  Rittman 
of  the  United  States  Army  Medical  Corps.  They  treated  12  cases  with  the  sin- 
gle-shot method,  and  11  were  cured. 

Addition  of  the  beeswax  causes  the  penicillin  to  last  much  longer.  One  of  the 
handicaps  in  giving  the  new  drug  is  that  the  human  body  excretes  it  quickly. 
The  peanut  oil  played  the  role  of  a  carrier  for  the  beeswax. 

The  report  said  there  was  no  pain  from  injection  of  the  beeswax  mixture  and 
that  no  allergic  reactions  were  noted.  — Associated  Press 


OCTOBER,  1944 


15 


Away  From  the  Land! 


THE  prospect  of  rehabilitat- 
ing tens  of  thousands  of  re- 
turning Service  personnel  turns 
the  spotlight  of  concern  again  on 
the  mounting  crisis  in  North 
American  agriculture. 

Tradition  has  decreed  that,  fol- 
lowing each  and  every  war,  a 
'back  to  the  land  movement'  shall 
be  undertaken — and  why  should 
this  generation  deviate  from  the 
behavior  pattern  of  our  ances- 
tors? In  the  past  it  has  been 
argued  that  men  who  have  lived 
through  the  horrors  of  war  will 
desire  and  benefit  from  the 
healthful  and  quiet  atmosphere  of 
rural  dwelling.  This  is  a  com- 
mendable consideration. 

Sixty  years  ago  over  half  of  the 
population  of  Canada  was  re- 
quired on  the  land  in  order  that 
the  remainder  might  be  fed.  Only 
one-quarter  of  the  present  area 
was  over  to  cultivation,  raising 
one-seventh  the  hogs,  one-quar- 
ter the  number  of  milk  cows,  and 
growing  only  about  one-seven- 
teenth the  yield  of  wheat.  Return- 
ing warriors  could  be  whisked 
away  to  the  country  and  readily 
absorbed  in  the  frontier  life  of 
a  virgin  Continent.  Men  who  had 
been  conditioned  to  the  habits  of 
coordinated   action    in   the   army 


readily  reverted  to  the  practices 
of  individual  enterprise,  and  the 
Price  System'  apostles  were 
pleased. 

But  this  is  the  year  1944  and 
things  have  changed — tradition 
has  hit  a  snag.  Thousands  of  vet- 
erans can  be  settled  on  farms, 
multitudes  of  wartime  industrial 
workers  can  be  placed  on  the 
land;  they  can  all  become  produ- 
cers— but  in  a  Price  System  can 
they  all  be  provided  with  a  live- 
lihood? 

Agriculture  has  been  in  a  state 
of  crisis  since  the  early  thirties. 
The  problem  is  abundance  and 
the  last  phase  of  the  crisis  is  be- 
fore us  as  the  harbinger  of  social 
change.  Aside  from  wishful 
thinking,  political  considerations, 
and  economic  babble,  just  what 
is  the  situation? 

Two  generations  ago  rural  life 
was  still  primitive.  John  Q.  Far- 
mer was  a  man  with  a  leathery 
face,  a  tattered  felt  hat,  a  few 
head  of  horses  or  possibly  a  brace 
of  oxen,  a  devoted  wife  whom  he 
called  'The  Missis',  and  an  assort- 
ment of  makeshift  contraptions 
he  called  machinery.  He  market- 
ed his  pail  of  eggs  (packed  in 
oats)  and  his  few  pounds  of  but- 
ter  (bundled  in  a  table  napkin) 


10 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


Si  ■ 


at  the  country  store,  and  he 
hibernated  during  the  winter 
months  in  the  glow  of  the  kitchen 
stove.  He  was  rugged  and  seedy 
— he  had  to  be — and  his  city 
cousins  thought  of  him  as  a 
quaint  character  wearing  a  vul- 
gar and  rather  aromatic  pair  of 
boots. 

This  was  'the  man  with  the 
hoe.'  The  work  he  accomplished 
was  through  man-power,  horse- 
power, ox-power,  and  windmill. 
And  the  average  farm  worker 
could  manage  only  33  acres  of 
improved  land. 

In  just  two  generations  all  this 
has  changed.  The  gasoline  engine, 
the  tractor,  the  combine,  the 
milking  machine,  the  chick  hatch- 
ery, and  an  array  of  new  imple- 
ments and  gadgets  have  effected 
a  startling  transition.  The  45.4 
million  Canadian  farm  acres  have 
become  174.8  million.  The  47,500 
tractors  of  1921  reached  the  159,- 
000  mark  by  1941  and  the  total 
of  automobiles  and  trucks  am- 
ounted to  an  additional  391,000 
vehicles,  while  the  number  of 
reaper  combines  in  operation 
more  than  doubled  in  the  10 
years  previous  to  1941. 

In  the  pioneer  days  a  quarter- 
section  of  western  prairie  land 
(160  acres)  was  a  standard  farm, 
while  in  the  east  100  acres  form- 
ed a  sizeable  unit.  But  to  power 
machinery  these  portions  proved 


restrictive.  Today  the  average 
Saskatchewan  and  Alberta  farm 
is  433  acres,  while  the  average 
for  the  entire  Dominion  is  238 
acres  per  farm. 

Man  has  moved  his  array 
of  machines  out  into  the  open 
and  given  us  a  glimpse  of 
what  can  be  done.  The  man  with 
the  hoe  is  becoming  the  agricul- 
tural technologist.  The  agrobiolo- 
gist has  provided  him  with  high- 
er -  yielding,  rust  -  resisting,  crop 
strains,  cows  that  give  more  milk, 
hens  that  lay  more  eggs,  and 
orchards  that  are  more  prolific. 
Farming  generally  is  becoming  a 
profession  and  fewer  farmers  are 
producing  more  food. 

What  are  the  comparative  fig- 
ures for  production?  The  wheat 
yield  of  32  million  bushels  in 
1881  jumped  to  560  million  bush- 
els in  1942;  the  one  million  milk 
cows  increased  to  four  million  by 
1941;  the  one  and  a-third  million 
hogs  were  rooting  nine  and  a-half 
million  strong  by  1944. 

New  techniques,  new  knowl- 
edge, and  new  machines  stepping 
up  the  momentum  of  production 
should  be  a  boon  to  Canada's 
rural  dwellers.  From  the  view- 
point of  efficiency  we  have  pro- 
gressed, but  from  a  Price  System 
point  of  view  the  farmers  have 
committed  an  economic  error. 
They  have  done  their  job  too 
well — they   have   produced   more 


OCTOBER,  1944 


17 


than  the  market  can  bear. 

Do  you  doubt  this?  Then  think 
for  a  moment  of  the  pre-war  de- 
pression days.  Farmers  produced 
wheat  in  such  abundance  that  it 
sold  for  as  low  as  25  cents  per 
bushel,  eggs  sold  in  some  locali- 
ties at  10  cents  per  dozen,  acres 
of  garden  produce  had  to  be 
plowed  under  for  lack  of  a  cash 
market,  and  carloads  of  beef  cat- 
tle would  often  bring  less  than 
the  shipping  costs.  The  farmer 
was  so  intent  on  making  a  suc- 
cess of  his  new  profession  that  he 
did  not  realize  that  price  was 
soon  to  loom  as  the  greatest  in- 
festation he  had  yet  encountered; 
a  blight  that  cut  deeper  into  his 
security  than  hail,  rust,  grasshop- 
pers, or  army  worms. 

Let  us  see  what  price  did  to 
him  in  just  10  years.  Between 
1928  and  1933  he  produced  so 
lavishly  that  his  dollar-and-cent 
income  dropped  over  two-thirds. 
Financial  burdens  bore  down  on 
him  from  all  sides  until  by  1941 
Canadian  farmers  reported  debt 
to  the  tune  of  $629,200,000— an 
average  of  $2,372  per  farm.  Only 
75  percent  owned  the  land  they 
lived  on.  Of  550,000  owners  who 
operated  their  holdings,  48  per- 
cent reported  mortgage  indebted- 
ness or  an  agreement  of  sale 
threatening  their  security.  'Free 
enterprise'  in  those  days  was  in- 
deed an  empty  bauble. 


The  Canadian  farmer  stood 
knee  deep  in  abundance  but  sty- 
mied in  a  welter  of  poverty. 
Those  farm  houses  that  did  not 
need  major  repairs  were  ready 
for  complete  demolition.  Less 
than  half  of  the  rural  dwellings 
could  boast  a  telephone  and  a 
mere  8  percent  had  flush  toilets 
or  bathroom  facilities  of  any 
kind.  The  farmer  had  succeeded 
in  filling  the  country's  granaries 
to  overflowing,  had  stocked  the 
produce  warehouses  to  the  roofs, 
and  much  of  the  orchard  harvest 
had  become  just  'too  costly'  to 
handle.  Poverty  in  the  midst  of 
plenty. 

In  the  cities  where  a  good  mar- 
ket had  formerly  been  provided, 
the  new  machines  of  industry 
were  producing  more  and  more 
goods  with  fewer  and  fewer  man- 
hours  of  work  and  a  consequent 
reduction  in  total  purchasing 
power.  The  Price  System  was 
holding  up  the  march  of  progress 
at  both  ends.  The  farmer  couldn't 
afford  to  sell  his  products  at  the 
ruinously  low  prices,  and  many 
of  the  city  dwellers  couldn't  af- 
ford to  buy  at  any  price. 

Glutted  markets,  shut-downs, 
and  oscillating  flow-lines  were 
throwing  the  entire  North  Am- 
erican economy  into  a  series  of 
convulsive  seizures  when  war 
broke  over  Europe. 

For  an  entire  year  afterwards, 


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TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


BoKf 

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the  tremors  continued  within  the 
Price  System  organism  and  dur- 
ing 1940  we  actually  witnessed 
the  curtailment  of  crop  acreages. 
Posters  appeared  to  the  effect 
that  we  must  eat  more  apples  in 
order  to  be  patriotic.  As  the  war 
machine  grew  its  appetite  in- 
creased, carrying  away  the  sur- 
pluses— yet  that  appetite  has 
never  become  insatiable.  Up- 
wards of  900,000  Canadians 
moved  out  of  their  peacetime 
pursuits  and  into  the  Armed 
Forces  to  fight  fascism.  Farm 
help  moved  to  the  larger  indus- 
trial centres  in  search  of  higher 
wages.  Since  1939,  agriculture 
has  lost  more  than  500,000  effect- 
ives. 

Fifty  years  ago  the  loss  of  half 
a  million  farm  helpers  would 
have  crippled  the  entire  industry 
and  thrown  the  country  into  a 
state  of  chaos.  But  again  we  must 
observe  that  this  is  1944.  In  spite 
of  untold  disadvantages,  Cana- 
dian agriculture  has  stepped  up 
its  output  no  less  than  40  percent 
to  meet  the  new  demands.  With 
no  additional  machinery  to  speak 
of,  with  actual  purchase  restric- 
tions, and  a  decided  drop  in  man- 
power, the  overall  efficiency  has 
thus  increased.  This  gives  us 
some  indication  of  the  extent  to 
which  agriculture  was  sabotaged 
by  our  Price  System  during  the 
prewar  decade. 

OCTOBER,  1944 


But  now  that  the  dam  is  down, 
now  that  the  ramparts  have  been 
penetrated,  let  us  look  beyond 
the  immediate  scene.  Can  you 
anticipate  the  day  six  months 
after  demobilization  when  the 
lure  of  rural  dwelling  calls  a 
million  native  sons  to  the  soil; 
when  factories  change  over  from 
Bofors  guns  to  milking  machines, 
from  tanks  to  tractors,  from  in- 
vasion barges  to  automatic  potato 
harvesters,  from  explosives  to 
fertilizers,  from  field  artillery  to 
combine  threshers,   etc? 

If  these  things  are  not  accomp- 
lished, all  the  postwar  planning 
that  is  currently  mooted  is  so 
much  eyewash,  and  the  peace 
will  have  been  lost.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  Canadians  decide  to 
go  forward  with  the  march  of 
events  we  shall  see  a  very  differ- 
ent picture. 

Technocracy  points  out  that 
Canadians  must  then  be  prepared 
to  tackle  the  problems  of  drought, 
soil  erosion,  reforestation,  mois- 
ture conservation,  and  flood  con- 
trol with  the  blueprints  of  a  Con- 
tinental Hydrology.  At  the  same 
time,  and  as  an  integral  part  of 
the  Continental  blueprint,  we 
shall  have  to  be  ready  to  develop 
all  our  potential  waterpower  sites 
in  order  to  facilitate  rural  electri- 
fication. These  are  major  pro- 
jects that,  of  necessity;  must  be 
handled  by  the  technologist  and 


19 


the  engineer. 

For  the  purpose  of  this  article, 
let  us  look  at  actual  farm  science. 
From  the  outset  we  must  recog- 
nize one  fact:  scientific  agricul- 
ture is  making  farming  a  profes- 
sion. 

The  modern  agrobiologist  con- 
siders the  soil  as  a  container  of 
chemicals  that  support  plant  life. 
The  limit  to  which  intensive 
yields  can  be  pushed  is  governed 
by  the  capacity  of  the  soil  to  con- 
tain these  chemicals  and  the 
capacity  of  the  plants  to  utilize 
them.  When  improvements  are 
accomplished  in  both  fertilizers 
and  crop  strains  simultaneously, 
the  results  are  so  remarkable  that 
we  are  prompted  to  take  a  second 
look. 

It  sounds  incredible  that  wheat 
can  yield  at  a  rate  of  171  bushels 
per  acre,  oats  at  395,  corn  at  225, 
and  potatoes  at  a  rate  of  1,330 
bushels  per  acre.  Yet  it  has 
been  proven  that  these  crops  can 
be  taken  out  of  the  soil  under 
perfect  agrobiological  conditions. 
Chemists  have  produced  the  fer- 
tilizers, geneticists  the  crop 
strains,  and  agrobiologists  have 
actually  attained  these  results. 

This  means  that  our  present 
farming  methods,  even  though 
they  produce  a  lavish  abundance, 
represent  a  technical  efficiency 
coefficient  of  less  than  10  percent 
of      the      theoretically      possible 


yield.  Given  only  semi-humid 
regions  of  North  America,  ade- 
quate plant  food,  selected  strains 
of  eight  principal  agrotypes 
(corn,  barley,  oats,  wheat,  cotton, 
rye,  potatoes,  and  sugar  beets), 
and  the  services  of  trained  en- 
tomologists, the  attainment  of  a 
coefficient  of  70  percent  of  the 
known  possible  yields  can  rea- 
sonably be  expected.  Thus  40 
million  acres  (less  than  the  culti- 
vated areas  of  the  state  of  Kan- 
sas) could  produce  the  equivalent 
yield  of  the  entire  United  States 
for  1930  in  these  eight  crops. 

When  we  develop  fertile  soils 
we  cut  down  the  required  acre- 
age, increase  production,  while 
eliminating  labor.  When  we  use 
the  most  vigorous  crop  strains, 
we  increase  the  output  without 
increasing  land  surface,  the  a- 
mount  of  fertilizer,  or  man-hours 
of  human  toil.  Recently  a  new 
strain  of  perennial  wheat  has 
been  developed  which  will  yield 
four  harvests  within  two  years 
from  one  sowing,  in  terrain  simi- 
lar to  that  of  Alberta  and  Sask- 
atchewan. The  trend  is  definite- 
ly towards  heavier  yields  on  lar- 
ger farms  with  an  accompanying 
diminution  of  human  labor. 

An  even  more  fundamental 
and  technological  approach  to 
agricultural  production  is  to  be 
found  in  those  cases  where  the 
soil  is  no  longer  considered  ne- 


20 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


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cessary  as  a  container  for  plant 
food  or  as  a  supporter  of  the 
growing  plant.  By  the  Faraday 
Fluid  Feeding  Process  currently 
in  use  in  California  and  else- 
where plant  food  is  dissolved  in 
water  which  is  contained  in  a 
long  shallow  trough.  Above  the 
water,  and  supported  by  wire 
netting,  is  a  bed  of  excelsior  in 
which  the  seeds  are  planted.  The 
roots  extend  downward  to  the 
water.  The  excelsior  and  wire 
netting  support  the  plants.  In 
this  manner  optimum  conditions 
can  be  constantly  maintained  and 
almost  phenomenal  production 
results.  (See  'Farming  Without 
Soil'  in  this  issue.) 

Where  are  agrobiological 
trends  leading  us?  The  Tech- 
nocracy Study  Course  clearly 
outlines  the  probabilities: 

'Regardless  of  whether  the  ag- 
riculture of  the  future  ultimately 
remains  predominately  in  the 
out-of-doors  farming  stage  or 
comes  to  resemble  an  agricultur- 
al factory,  the  fact  remains  that 
the  application  of  the  technolo- 
gical methods  will  revolutionize 
it  to  where  present  methods  are 
truly  primitive  in  comparison. 

'Suppose  that  out-of-doors  ag- 
riculture remains  predominant. 
Large-scale  operations  require 
large  tracts  of  land  worked  by 
machinery  gigantic  in  size  as 
compared  with  any  that  present 


day  farmers  are  able  to  employ. 
Land-breaking  to  depths  of  two 
to  three  feet  is  not  at  all  imprac- 
ticable with  equipment  specially 
designed  for  that  purpose.  Such 
deep  plowing  in  conjunction  with 
run-off  control  of  the  water  sup- 
ply would  practically  eliminate 
drought  hazards.  Proper  fertili- 
zation and  tilling  would  do  the 
rest.  Only  the  best  land  and  ag- 
ricultural climates  need  be  uti- 
lized because  with  such  yields 
as  could  be  obtained  by  those 
methods  little  more  land  than  is 
contained  in  the  state  of  Illinois 
would  be  required  for  all  agri- 
cultural produce  for  the  United 
States. 

'Needless  to  say,  all  present 
farms  and  land  divisions  would 
be  eliminated.  Agriculture  would 
be  only  one  division  of  a  vast 
chemical  industry  which  would 
convert  the  raw  materials  of  the 
land  into  useful  products  and  in 
turn  supply  to  the  land  its  re- 
quirements in  fertilizers  and 
plant  food.  Tracts  of  probably 
tens  of  miles  square  would  be 
worked  as  a  unit.  Equipment 
would  operate  24  hours  per  day, 
and  be  rotated  in  such  a  manner 
that  each  piece  of  equipment 
would  be  in  as  continual  opera- 
tion as  possible  throughout  the 
year.' 

But  what  of  the  thousands  of 
ex-servicemen    whom    our    post- 


mm 


m 

■  Eg  -. 


■HI 


JB 

hhB 


Kg 


OCTOBER,  1944 


21 


m 

i 

iJktt 
ISI 

1 

wt 

JPr 

ffl£i 

A 

■ 

* 

Emm 

1 

war  planners  seek  to  establish  as 
individual  owners  and  operators? 
What  of  the  burden  of  industrial 
waifs  that  industry  seeks  to  un- 
load in  the  country?  Is  it  not 
obvious  that  this  type  of  'plan- 
ning' stands  at  direct  variance 
with  the  trend  of  North  America's 
natural  progression?  Do  we  pro- 
pose to  starve  and  malinger  in- 
dividually or  thrive  collectively? 

With  integrated  operations  we 
can  control  and  prevent  erosion. 
With  a  Continental  blueprint  we 
can  undertake  a  national  re- 
housing program.  Collectively 
we  can  control  insect  infestations 
and  plant  diseases.  With  an 
overall  control  mechanism  of 
function  we  can  transform  North 
America  into  a  Continental  play- 
ground of  lakes,  forests,  moun- 
tains, and  plains,  with  a  re-grass- 
ing program  for  marginal  lands, 
a  reforestation  of  woodlands,  and 
an  intensification  of  farming  op- 
erations in  those  areas  where 
high  yields  are  a  foregone  con- 
clusion. 

This   would    be   the   first   land 


area  on  earth  where  people  could 
relax  in  peace,  with  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living,  with  less  human  toil 
and  more  leisure.  This  is  the 
land  we  should  be  preparing  for 
heroes.  This  is  what  the  fighting 
man  wants  for  himself  in  prefer- 
ence to  a  struggle  for  life  and 
death  on  a  marooned  homestead. 

Collectively  or  otherwise  we 
shall  create  such  a  plethora  of 
goods  that  a  'price  tag'  will  be- 
come as  alien  to  this  Continent 
as  the  swastika  insignia — the 
pressing  unidirectional  flow  of 
energy  in  North  America  makes 
that  advent  very  probable  in 
spite  of  our  stumblebum  econo- 
my of  waste.  The  sheer  necessity 
of  social  change  on  a  major  scale 
will    be    dropped    into   our   lap. 

At  that  time,  will  we  choose 
science  and  the  Energy  Certifi- 
cate, or  will  we  cling  to 
the  outmoded  concept  of  money 
evaluation  and  end  it  all  in  ig- 
noble muddled  chaos?  The  time 
to  commence  doing  something 
about  it  is  now. 

— C.  Warren  Lowes 


Technology  Marches  On 


*  NEW  WESTMINSTER,  Sept.  16.— An  example  of  speed  and  labor  saving 
by  war  emergency  equipment  is  seen  in  the  Glenbrook  Ravine  fill  on  Sixth  Ave- 
nue, north  of  the  B.C.  penitentiary. 

Bowman  Construction  Company  is  making  the  fill  for  the  city  of  New  West- 
minster by  employing  a  carry-all  used  on  the  Alaska  Highway.  This  machine  is 
making  good  progress  by  removing  from  1500  to  2000  yards  per  eight-hour 
shift  from  an  earth  bank  for  the  fill,  and  it  only  employs  four  men. 

Engineers  estimate  that  it  is  doing  three  times  the  work  of  a  large  size  diesel 
shovel  and  a  fleet  of  trucks,  the  method  which  was  used  in  the  pre-war  period. 

— Vancouver  Sun 


22 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


Farming  Without  Soil 


FLOWERS  and  vegetables 
growing  in  gravel — bigger, 
better,  and  less  expensive  than 
the  traditional  brown  dirt  of 
mother  earth — is  the  scientific 
achievement  of  a  Vancouver 
man,  G.  K.  Allen  of  5501  McKen- 
zie,  who  has  spent  30  years  in 
the  business  of  showing  up  old 
Mother  earth  for  the  slacker  she 
really  is. 

Mr.  Allen's  bag  of  tricks  con- 
sists of  chemicals,  which  he  feeds 
to  plants  on  baby-diet  schedule. 

Specializing  on  tomatoes,  Mr. 
Allen  has  produced  the  red  fruit 
on  stalks  as  high  as  12  to  13  feet, 
weighing  8V2  to  9  pounds,  with 
sometimes  as  many  as  ten  good 
trusses  and  over  26  tomatoes  on 
each  plant. 

Analyzed  by  the  department  of 
agriculture  at  Ottawa,  his  toma- 
toes have  been  found  30  percent 
higher  in  mineral  content  than 
Ontario's  famous  crop,  and  the 
record  is  improving  as  Mr.  Allen 
continues  his  experiments. 

He  has  several  methods  of 
feeding  his  plants  the  necessary 
chemicals,  but  the  standard  and 
most  efficient  one  for  green- 
houses is  placing  the  plants  in  a 
long  box  filled  with  gravel. 

Down  the   center   of    the    box 


runs  a  trough  through  which 
chemicals  are  fed  once  a  week, 
using  an  electric  centrifugal 
pump.  As  the  chemicals  are 
drawn  out,  the  plants  get  a  good 
dose  of  air  enough  to  last  them 
for   the   next   feeding. 

Mr.  Allen  has  26  formulae  for 
his  mixtures,  containing  an  im- 
posing list  of  chemicals  such  as 
nitrogen,  phosphorus,  potash, 
calcium,  magnesium,  sulphur, 
and  so  on  down  the  list,  bringing 
the  plants  every  element  they 
need  for  life. 

He  has  a  record  for  growing 
tomatoes  which  he  claims  cannot 
be  beaten.  Setting  the  seeds  on 
February  25,  transplanting  on 
March  25,  he  can  have  red  round 
tomatoes  by  June  5. 

'You  can't  do  that  in  soil,'  he 
says  proudly. 

Mr.  Allen  has  other  vegetable 
marvels  in  his  chemical  garden, 
which  he  believes  is  the  coming 
thing  for  greenhouse  growers. 
He  has  been  growing  a  few  po- 
tatoes in  straw  for  diversion,  and 
has  a  large  number  of  flowers 
in  his  greenhouse  growing  in 
everything  from  gravel'  to  prac- 
tically nothing — all  receiving 
their  life-force  from  chemicals. 

— Vancouver  News-Herald 


OCTOBER,  1944 


23 


IflT 


The  Significance  of  Steep  Rock 


LOOKING  across  the  inter- 
national boundary,  Cana- 
dians have  seen  that  the  United 
States  owes  its  industrial  sup- 
remacy to  the  great  iron  ore  de- 
posits of  the  Lake  Superior  re- 
gion more  than  to  any  other  fac- 
tor and  Canada  has  for  years 
searched  its  great  Precambrian 
Shield  to  find  a  deposit  of  raw 
ore  high  enough  in  iron  content 
to  be  of  commercial  grade  and  to 
serve  as  a  basis  of  a  tremendous 
development  in  Canada's  indus- 
trial life. 

The  rich  and  vast  supply  of 
iron  ores  discovered  in  Michigan, 
Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota  be- 
tween the  middle  and  the  end  of 
the  last  century  reached  its  peak 
with  the  discovery  and  develop- 
ment of  the  Mesabi  Range,  from 
which  the  first  iron  ore  was  ship- 
ped in  1892.  The  development 
of  these  deposits  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  and  ushered  in  the  vast 
expansion  of  the  steel  industry 
in  the  United  States,  giving  rise 
to  a  great  period  of  American 
prosperity  and  expansion. 

The   making  of  iron  and  steel 


Reprinted  from  the  September  issue 
of  WESTERN  BUSINESS  AND  IN- 
DUSTRY by  kind  permission  of  the 
publisher,    Howard   T.    Mitchell. 


created  the  great  industrial  com- 
munities of  Chicago,  Cleveland, 
Pittsburgh,  and  Youngstown  and 
many  other  cities  and  towns.  In 
1893  a  total  of  614,000  tons  of  ore 
was  shipped  from  the  Mesabi 
Range,  while  in  1942  such  ship- 
ments reached  a  peak  of  70,280,- 
000  tons.  Total  shipments  from 
the  Lake  Superior  district  in 
1942  were  93,009,000  tons. 

The  transportation  of  the  Lake 
Superior  district  ores  to  the  blast 
furnaces  in  the  United  States  has 
meant  success  of  railway  lines 
and  has  created  a  great  ore-car- 
rying fleet  on  the  Great  Lakes. 

The  water  transportation  of 
this  ore  has  formed  the  chief  ton- 
nage on  the  lakes.  This  tonnage, 
combined  with  that  of  coal,  grain, 
and  other  commodities  passing 
through  the  American  and  Cana- 
dian canals  at  Sault  Ste.  Marie 
and  the  Welland  Canal  between 
Lake  Erie  and  Lake  Ontario  is 
greater  than  that  passing  through 
the  Suez  and  Panama  Canals 
combined. 

The  development  of  the  Lake 
Superior  ores,  because  of  their 
richness  and  high  iron  content, 
closed  the  working  of  iron  de- 
posits of  lower  grade  in  many 
parts    of   the    United    States   and 


24 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


3kL 


m 


V 


m 


also  a  number  in  Canada,  and 
gave  to  the  great  iron  ranges  of 
Lake  Superior  district  a  pre- 
eminence in  the  iron  and  steel 
world   of  North   America. 

As  far  back  as  1900,  laws  were 
shaped  to  stimulate  the  produc- 
tion of  iron  ore  in  Ontario  and  to 
provide  assistance  by  way  of 
bounty.  In  1922,  the  Ontario  Gov- 
ernment appointed  an  Iron  Ore 
Committee  to  study  the  iron  ore 
deposits  of  Ontario,  and  a  valu- 
able report  by  this  committee 
was  presented  and  published  in 
1923,  giving  particulars  of  the 
various  ore  deposits  in  Ontario 
as  then  known.  Tangible  results 
were  obtained  for  a  time  in  the 
operation  of  the  Helen  Mine  in 
the  Michipicoten  area,  the  first 
shipment  having  been  made  in 
1900.  When  this  property  was 
closed  in  1918f  a  total  of  some  2,- 
800,000  tons  had  been  produced 
and  shipped. 

During  the  summer  of  1937,  the 
Algoma  Ore  Properties  Limited 
began  rebuilding  the  surface  e- 
quipment  at  the  Helen  Mines, 
where  ore  reserves  are,  however, 
high  in  sulphur  and  thus  require 
roasting  to  fit  the  ore  for  use  in 
the  blast  furnace.  As  a  result, 
Canada  reported,  for  the  first 
time  since  1933,  the  production 
of  iron  ore  for  the  year  1939.  Ca- 
nadian production  figures  since 
that  time  are  as  follows: 


Year  Tons  Shipped 

1939 111,000 

1940 361,000 

1941  463,000 

1942  487,000 

1943  451,000 

This   brings   tonnage   produced 

since  1900  to  a  figure  of  only  5,- 
808,000  tons,  which  is  negligible 
when  compared  with  the  ship- 
ments from  mines  in  the  Lake 
Superior  district  of  the  United 
States,  which,  up  to  and  includ- 
ing 1943,  have  totalled  2,111,343,- 
000  tons. 

High  hopes  were  held  for  the 
production  of  iron  ore  from 
Moose  Mountain  Mine,  about  40 
miles  north  of  Sudbury,  where 
United  States  interests  (later 
joined  by  Canadian  interests) 
opened  up  large  deposits.  As  de- 
velopment proceeded,  it  became 
evident  that  the  ore,  in  its  natural 
state,  was  not  commercial  and 
could  not  compete  with  ores  from 
the  Lake  Superior  district.  Ex- 
periments in  beneficiating  this 
ore  were  commenced,  involving 
an  expenditure  of  several  million 
dollars,  with  operations  said  to  be 
successful  under  conditions  pre- 
vailing at  that  time.  The  coming 
of  the  war  of  1914-1918  prevented 
the  continuation  of  the  project 
and  the  installation  of  a  perman- 
ent plant.  The  property' was  shut 
down  and  has  not  been  re- 
opened. 


OCTOBER,  1944 


Notwithstanding  the  many  ef- 
forts referred  to,  neither  Ontario 
nor  Canada  was  producing  any 
iron  ore  until  the  construction  of 
the  benefication  plant  of  the 
Helen  Mine.  This  plant  now  pro- 
duces iron  sinter  at  a  rate  of 
some  400,000  tons  per  annum, 
having  an  iron  content  of  approx- 
imately 53%.  A  portion  of  this  is 
being  used  by  the  Algoma  Steel 
Corporation  at  Sault  Ste.  Marie, 
Ontario,  and  the  balance  traded 
with  United  States  ore  producers 
for  Lake  Superior  ores. 

The  extent  to  which  Canada  is 
dependent  on  outside  sources  of 
iron  and  its  products  is  evidenced 
by  the  fact  that  imports  of  such 
products  approximate  or  are  in 
excess  of  the  value  of  all  the  gold 
produced  in  Canada. 

In   recent    years,    the    figures 

have  been  as  follows: 

Imports  of 

Iron  and  its 

Products 

$211,002,000 
162,554,000 
183,159,000 
298,902,000 


Year 

1937 
1938 
1939 
1940 


Gold 
Produced 

$143,326,000 
166,205.000 
184,115,000 
204,479,000 

The  most  recent  and  spectacu- 
lar iron  ore  development  in  Ca- 
nada is  that  of  Steep  Rock  Iron 
Mines  Limited,  now  nearing  the 
point  of  production  in  the  Rainy 
River  district  of  Ontario.  This  is 
expected  to  be  one  of  the  most 
valuable  mining  developments  in 
the  history  of  Canada  and  is  be- 
ing visualized  as  the  first  step  to- 


ward a  future  industrial  empire 
for  the  Dominion. 

The  existence  of  high  grade  ore 
in  the  Steep  Rock  Lake  area,  just 
across  the  international  bound- 
ary from  the  Minnesota  iron 
ranges,  has  been  known  for  near- 
ly half  a  century,  due  to  the  pre- 
sence along  the  southern  shore  of 
the  lake  of  large  quantities  of 
high  grade  ore  in  the  form  of 
'float'  ore  eroded  from  the  parent 
body  by  glacial  action.  Although 
the  southward  movement  of  the 
icecap  in  the  glacial  age  would 
tend  to  indicate  that  the  ore  bod- 
ies must  be  north  of  the  place 
where  the  float  ore  is  found, 
most  of  the  preliminary  explor- 
ation ignored  this  theory,  probab- 
ly because  no  one  wanted  to 
undertake  the  complex  problems 
presented  by  Steep  Rock  Lake  if, 
in  fact,  the  ore  bodies  were  un- 
der it. 

The  studies  and  explorations 
leading  to  the  present  develop- 
ment covered  a  period  from  1930 
to  1937  and  resulted  in  locating 
three  high-grade  iron  ore  bodies 
known  as  A,  B  and  C.  Reports  by 
independent  engineers  indicate 
iron  ore  deposits  of  great  magni- 
tude not  only  in  these  zones  but 
elsewhere  on  the  property. 

With  the  presence  of  this  ore 
established  and  financing  accom- 
plished, the  Seine  River,  which 
flowed  through  Steep  Rock  Lake, 


2f> 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


■  '■■■"- 
-.*-■•- 


■ 


J    Hi 

H 

H 

■ 


P 

i 


was  diverted  north  through  Fin- 
layson  Lake  (which  was  lowered 
about  55  feet)  around  the  head 
of  Steep  Rock  Lake  and  into  its 
west  arm  which  was  dammed  off. 
Power  for  the  mines  and  power 
to  replace  that  which  had  been 
generated  at  the  head  of  the  lake 
was  brought  to  the  property  by 
the  Hydro-Electric  Commission 
of  Ontario  which  constructed  a 
142-mile  power  line  from  Port 
Arthur  through  difficult  country 
in  180  days.  Canadian  National 
Railways,  which  has  granted  a 
competitive  freight  rate  for  Steep 
Rock  ore,  is  building  ore-loading 
docks  at  Port  Arthur  and  the 
three-mile  spur  track  from  Ati- 
kokan  to  the  lake. 

Pumping  operations  began  nine 
months  after  work  was  started  as 
compared  with  an  original  sche- 
dule of  fifteen  months,  and  a  bat- 
tery of  pumps  lowered  the  lake 
at  the  rate  of  about  six  inches  or 
500,000,000  gallons  per  day.  The 
area  being  unwatered  is  more 
than  five  square  miles,  and  a 
total  estimated  121,000,000,000 
gallons  of  water  will  be  pumped, 
the  biggest  pumping  operation 
ever  undertaken  in  any  mining 
operation  on  the  North  American 
continent.  The  pumps  are  ex- 
ceeding their  rated  capacity  and 
the  lake  level  by  the  end  of  Aug- 
ust this  year  was  well  below  100 
feet.  As  soon  as  the  water  in  the 


lake  reached  the  level  of  the 
over-burden  at  the  B  ore  body, 
stripping  operations  began  and 
will  follow  the  water  down. 

First  shipments  of  ore  were 
scheduled  for  August  of  this 
year.  Scheduled  production  for 
1944  is  500,000  tons,  with  a  mini- 
mum of  1,000,000  tons  in  1945  and 
a  minimum  of  2,000,000  tons  per 
year  thereafter. 

Analyses  of  Steep  Rock  iron 
ore  have  revealed  a  striking  uni- 
formity and  a  remarkable  com- 
bination of  chemical  and  structu- 
ral characteristics.  The  superior 
quality  of  Steep  Rock  ore  is  es- 
tablished by  the  following  com- 
parisons of  analyses  of  opposite 
samples  drilled  from  the  A  and 
B  zones  with  the  average  analy- 
sis of  standard  ores  shipped 
from  the  Lake  Superior  district 
in  1944: 

Lake 

Steep  Rock  Ore  Superior 

A  Zone  B  Zone  District 

Analysis  %  %     Ore  %  * 

Iron,  natural        58.09       56.54       52.30 

Phosphorus, 

dry  0.023       0.017       0.081 

Silica,  dry  2.71         3.37         7.68 

*  Averages  of  figures  for  all 
washed  and  beneficiated  ore,  as 
well  as  all  natural  ore  shipped 
from  Lake  Superior  district  in 
1941. 

Selected  Steep  Rock  lump  ore 
will  run  as  high  as  63%  and  as 
low  as  1.50%  silica. 

High  in  iron,  low  in  phosphorus 


■  ■ 


■ 


m 


OCTOBER,  1944 


27 


■  Hi 


1 1  ■■ 


■IBI 


and  hard  in  structure,  Steep 
Rock  iron  ore  is  classified  as  'Old 
Range  Bessemer,'  and  is  entitled 
to  the  price  premiums  that  this 
type  of  ore  commands.  With 
these  exceptional  qualities,  Steep 
Rock  iron  ore,  in  its  natural 
state,  is  ideal  for  the  blast  fur- 
nace and  the  open  hearth,  as  well 
as  for  direct  reduction  in  the 
electric  furnace  and  mixing  with 
lower   grade  ores. 

Because  its  phosphorous  con- 
tent is  well  below  the  Bessemer 
maximum  limit  of  .045%,  Steep 
Rock  iron  ore  can  be  mixed  with 
one  or  more  tons  of  Non-Besse- 
mer ore  to  produce  two  or  more 
tons  of  Bessemer  grade. 

Similarly,  the  low  silica  con- 
tent of  Steep  Rock  iron  ore 
makes  it  desirable  as  a  'sweeten- 
er' for  high  silica  ores.  One  ton 
of  it  can  be  mixed  with  two  tons 
of  ore  carrying  10.29%  silica,  for 
instance,  to  produce  three  tons  of 
furnace  feed  within  the  8%  max- 
imum limit  imposed  by  blast 
furnace  practice. 

Perhaps  the  most  outstanding 
and  valuable  characteristic  of  the 
Steep  Rock  ore  is  its  suitabilty 
for  open  hearth  use.  It  was  early 
recognized  that  the  physical 
characteristics  and  chemical  com- 
position of  certain  parts  of  the 
ore  were  such  as  to  make  it 
suitable  for  open  hearth  'feed 
ore'  or  what    is    termed     in    the 


trade  open  hearth  lump,  which 
carries  a  substantial  cash  prem- 
ium on  the  market.  It  was  later 
thought  possible  that  the  Steep 
Rock  ore  might  also  be  suitable 
for  open  hearth  'charge  ore'  and 
an  investigation  into  the  suitabil- 
ity of  the  ore  for  general  open 
hearth  use  was  therefore  under- 
taken. 

The  investigation  was  first 
made  on  a  laboratory  scale  by 
the  Battelle  Memorial  Institute 
of  Columbus,  Ohio,  using  'float' 
ore  from  the  south  shore  of  the 
lake.  This  particular  ore  was  a 
Mttle  lower  in  grade  than  the 
average  of  the  ore  bodies  as  de- 
termined by  drilling.  The  tests 
were  made  in  comparison  with 
the  best  natural  and  sintered 
open  hearth  ores  in  use  in  the 
United  States.  The  extensive  re- 
ports submitted  by  the  Battelle 
Institute  established  that  the 
Steep  Rock  ore  is  an  outstanding 
ore  for  open  hearth  use. 

Later  tests  were  made  in  full 
scale  runs  in  the  open  hearth 
furnaces  of  the  Republic  Steel 
Corporation  at  Buffalo,  New 
York.  Steep  Rock  'float'  ore  in 
lumps  was  used,  and  these  tests 
confirmed  and  amplified  the  re- 
sults obtained  by  the  Battelle  In- 
stitute. 

Cleveland  Cliffs  Iron  Com- 
pany, Cleveland,  Ohio,  the  larg- 
est and  oldest  iron  ore  merchants 


28 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


W 


'-V. 


MB 


■ 


in  the  United  States,  have  recent- 
ly contracted  to  purchase  sub- 
stantial tonnage  of  Steep  Rock 
ore  over  a  period  of  years  for  sale 
to  their  customers,  which  include 
practically  all  of  the  steel  manu- 
facturing companies  in  the  Uni- 
ted States  and  Canada. 

The  importance  of  the  discov- 
ery and  development  of  the  Steep 
Rock  high  grade  iron  ore  depos- 
its is  emphasized  by  the  rapidly 
diminishing  supplies  of  high 
grade  ore  in  the  Lake  Superior 
district  under  the  impetus  of  war- 
time production.  Various  esti- 
mates have  been  made  as  to  the 
life  of  the  remaining  ores  of  this 
character,  such  estimates  run- 
ning from  something  under  ten 
years  to  fourteen  or  fifteen  years. 

The  Steep  Rock  iron  ore  de- 
posits constitute  the  only  great 
new  source  of  high  grade  ore  on 
the  continent  and  its  production 


should  be  an  important  factor  in 
the  increasingly  serious  need  for 
such  ore  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada. 

The  long  range  possibilities  de- 
riving from  the  Steep  Rock  iron 
ore  deposits  include  the  develop- 
ment of  a  great  Canadian  steel 
industry,  particularly  because  of 
the  enormous  supply  of  cheap 
hydro-electric  power  which  can 
be  developed  in  Ontario  and 
Quebec. 

The  great  industrial  develop- 
ment in  Sweden  based  on  its  re- 
serves of  high  grade  iron  ore  and 
its  abundant  hydro-electric  pow- 
er may  be  cited  as  an  example  of 
the  possibilities  in  Canada.  Swe- 
den not  only  makes  electric  pig 
iron  and  electric  steel  but  is  a 
big  exporter  of  them.  A  similar 
development  in  Canada  would 
be  close  to  tremendous  markets. 
— T.  L.  Bailey 


The  March  of  Power 

■if  OTTAWA,  Sept.  8. — Canada  will  emerge  from  the  war  with  electric  power 
production  facilities  21  percent  in  excess  of  1939,  munitions  department  officials 
said  today. 

It  took  Canada  a  half  century  to  build  up  the  power  system  of  8,190,000 
horsepower  she  had  in  1939.  In  five  war  years  1,803,000  has  been  added.  Canada 
is  believed  to  be  the  highest  per  capita  user,  electric  power  providing  the  mo- 
tive force  for  80  percent  of  the  Dominion's  industries. 

More  than  56  percent  of  Canada's  installed  power  capacity  is  in  Quebec, 
which,  despite  heavy  needs  of  its  own  industries,  is  able  to  export  about  25  per- 
cent of  its  power  output  to  Ontario.  Quebec  has  an  installed  capacity  of  some 
5,700,000  horsepower. 

Ontario  ranks  second  with  2,670,000  horsepower  and  British  Columbia — 
second  to  Quebec  in  available  water  power  resources — has  796,000  horsepower. 

— Canadian  Press 


OCTOBER,  1944 


29 


JH1 


Canadian  Base  Metal  Production 


OTTAWA,  Sept.  5.— Canada, 
long  an  important  world 
producer  of  metals,  will  emerge 
from  the  war  with  new  stature 
in  this  field. 

Figures  made  public  last  week 
by  the  munitions  department 
show  that  development  of  new 
metals  during  the  war  period  has 
been  paralleled  by  expanded  out- 
put by  established  mines,  and 
the  war  metals  program  has 
gained  for  the  Dominion  first 
place  as  an  exporter  of  base 
metals. 

During  the  war  period  exports, 
apart  from  gold,  of  non-ferrous 
metals  and  minerals  and  their 
products,  have  soared  from  the 
1939  figure  of  $213,000,000  to 
$395,000,000  in  1943,  and  Canada 
now  ranks  as  the  top  world  pro- 
ducer of  nickel,  asbestos,  plati- 
num, and  radium,  and  is  in  sec- 
ond place  for  gold,  aluminum, 
mercury,  and  molybdenum. 

One  of  the  most  spectacular 
phases  of  this  development  has 
been  in  metals  that  were  totally 
unknown  to  Canada  mining  or 
were  far  down  the  production 
list  in  pre-war  days. 

Magnesium  is  an  example.  In 
1939,  there  was  no  magnesium 
produced  in  Canada,  while  now 
this     lightweight     metal,     highly 


valuable  to  war  production,  is 
being  turned  out  at  the  rate  of 
10  tons  a  day. 

Chrome  ore  is  another.  In 
1939,  principal  sources  were 
South  Africa,  the  Philippines,  In- 
dia, and  Turkey.  The  war 
brought  acute  shortages,  but 
early  in  1943  a  government-own- 
ed project  came  into  production 
at  Black  Lake,  Que.,  and  its  out- 
put of  600  tons  of  ore  a  day  now 
is  meeting  war  requirements. 

Molybdenum  is  valuable  in  the 
manufacture  of  certain  steels. 
There  was  none  produced  in  this 
country  in  1939.  The  1943  pro- 
duction figure  stood  at  500  tons. 

The  expansion  of  the  Canadian 
aluminum  industry  to  six  times 
its  pre-war  size  has  been  one  of 
the  Dominion's  notable  achieve- 
ments on  the  industrial  front. 

Canada's  tin  supply — non-ex- 
istent before  the  war  but  totalling 
780  tons  last  year — is  divided  60 
percent  war,  40  percent  civilian. 

Slim  though  this  amount  is,  it 
is  highly  valuable  in  meeting  es- 
sential demands  for  a  metal  that 
has  been  in  extremely  short  sup- 
ply since  Pearl  Harbor.  Tin  is 
being  produced  in  Canada  as  a 
by-product  from  some  lead-zinc 
ores. 

— Canadian  Press 


30 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


Postwar  Planning  by  Cartels 


■ 


■ ■  i 


THE  character  of  the  cartel 
problem  in  a  postwar  world 
established  by  the  United  Na- 
tions may  be  partially  forecast 
on  the  basis  of  the  present  activi- 
ties and  plans  of  those  who  sup- 
port cartels. 

Many  cartel  arrangements  are 
still  in  effect,  with  modifications 
designed  to  meet  conditions  of 
war.  Their  continuance  is  evi- 
dence of  an  intention  to  maintain 
them  in  either  an  original  or  a 
modified  form  after  the  war.  In 
many  cases,  however,  postwar 
cartel  plans  are  not  matters  of 
inference.  Suspension  of  cartel 
arrangements  in  wartime  and 
their  renewal  as  soon  as  possible 
thereafter  has  been  provided  for 
by  specific  agreement. 

A  striking  illustration  of  such 
a  program  is  contained  in  a  letter 
which  Bendix  Aviation  Corpora- 
tion sought  Government  authori- 
zation to  send  in  July  1942,  to 
Robert  Bosch,  A.G.,  and  Siemens 


This  material  has  been  reprinted 
from  Senate  Committee  Print,  Mono- 
graph No.  1,  78th  Congress  2nd  Ses- 
sion, on  'Economic  and  Political  As- 
pects of  International  Cartels.' 
Readers  should  bear  in  mind  that  the 
cartel  system  exactly  fits  Technoc- 
racy's definition  of  fascism:  the  con- 
solidation of  all  minor  rackets  into 
a  major  monopoly  for  the  preser- 
vation  of  the   Price   System. 

OCTOBER,  1944 


Apparate-und-Maschinebau  of 
Germany,  Ottoco  Maceio  of  Italy, 
Societe  Anonyme  Solex  of 
France,  and  Mitsui  &  Co.  and 
Tokyo  Keiki  Seisakusho  of  Ja- 
pan. Referring  to  antitrust  in- 
vestigations of  Bendix  license 
agreements  with  these  companies 
as  to  rate-of-climb  instruments, 
Bendix  points  out  that  the  De- 
partment of  Justice  has  ques- 
tioned territorial  restrictions  of 
the  agreements  as  violations  of 
the  antitrust  laws.  Commenting 
that  because  of  the  state  of  war 
the  agreements  are  wholly  inop- 
erative but  that  their  wording 
might  prevent  exports  'even  in 
normal  times,'  Bendix  offers  to 
amend  the  contracts  so  that  they 
do  permit  export  but  do  not  grant 
any  rights  under  patents  held  by 
others  outside  the  territory  of 
the  license.  The  obvious  effect 
of  such  an  amendment  would  be 
to  rely  upon  allocation  of  patent 
rights  as  a  basis  for  division  of 
territories  instead  of  providing 
for  such  a  division  in  the  explicit 
terms  of  the  contracts. 

The  du  Pont  Co.  apparently 
has  an  understanding  that  many, 
if  not  all,  of  its  cartel  agreements 
will  be  resumed  after  the  war. 
The  general  agreement  between 
du  Pont   and   Imperial   Chemical 


31 


■ 


Industries  and  certain  special 
agreements  as  to  South  American 
explosives  are  still  in  effect.  The 
termination  of  the  exchange  of 
technical  information  between 
du  Pont  and  I.G.  Farben  in  April 
1941  was  intended  to  endure  'un- 
til the  present  emergency  has 
passed'  with  'all  other  obliga- 
tions in  the  contracts  to  remain 
as  at  present.'  The  termination 
of  other  exchanges  of  technical 
information  under  patents  and 
processes  agreements  was  voted 
by  the  du  Pont  executive  com- 
mittee in  April  1941,  on  the  un- 
derstanding that  those  arrange- 
ments should  'remain  suspended 
until  the  termination  of  the  pre- 
sent international  emergency.'  In 
July  1941  the  German  Schering 
Co.  proposed  to  du  Pont  as  to 
their  jointly  owned  subsidiary, 
Duco  A.G.,  that  the  parent  com- 
panies should  file  patent  applica- 
tions in  such  a  way  that  these 
would  be  available  to  Duco  A.G. 
after  the  war,  'so  that  upon  the 
ending  of  the  abnormal  times  the 
old  contractual  relations  can 
again  be  assumed.'  Schering  fur- 
ther commented  that  from  du 
Pont's  letter  they  took  for  grant- 
ed 'that  both  partners  are  in  the 
same  fashion  resolved,  as  soon  as 
circumstances  permit,  again  to 
manage  and  promote  the  joint 
daughter  company  in  the  same 
way  as  has  been  the  case  over  the 


last  10  years  in  such  frictionless 
and  successful  manner.'  Du 
Pont's  reply  is  not  available. 

Though  these  cases  all  arose 
prior  to  the  belligerency  of  the 
United  States,  the  continuance  of 
cartel  arrangements  with  Imper- 
ial Chemical  Industries  makes  it 
clear  that  Du  Pont  still  supports 
cartel  programs,  whether  or  not 
its  attitude  toward  German  par- 
ticipants  may   have   changed. 

The  agreement  between  Stand- 
ard Oil  Co.  of  New  Jersey  and 
I.G.  Farben  in  1931  contained  a 
provision  that  'in  the  event  the 
performance  of  these  agreements 
or  any  material  provisions  there- 
of by  either  party  should  be 
hereafter  restrained  or  prevented 
by  operation  of  any  existing  or 
future  law,  or  the  beneficial  in- 
terest of  either  party  be  alienated 
to  a  substantial  degree  by  opera- 
tion of  law  or  governmental  au- 
thority, the  parties  should  enter 
into  new  negotiations  in  the 
spirit  of  the  present  agreements 
and  endeavor  to  adapt  their  re- 
lations to  the  changed  conditions 
which  have  so  arisen.' 

Although  Standard  Oil's  part- 
nership with  I.  G.  Farben  has 
been  terminated  by  consent  de- 
cree, the  company  has  indicated 
its  unwillingness  to  undertake  to 
avoid  such  commitments  in  the 
future.  At  the  company's  an- 
nual meeting     in     June   1943,  a 


32 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


J/*' 


>>v 


H 


stockholder's  motion  was  offered 
'that  the  Standard  Oil  Co.  (New 
Jersey)  shall  not  resume  cartel 
relations  with  I.G.  Farbenindus- 
trie  after  this  war.' 

The  chairman  opposed  the  mo- 
tion with  a  defense  of  Standard's 
past  relations  to  I.  G.  and  an  as- 
sertion that  the  company  must 
not  tie   its  hands   in  the  future: 

'We  do  not  know  what  busi- 
ness conditions  will  be  in  the 
postwar  world.  We  do  not  know 
how  the  very  intricate  and  com- 
plicated problems  of  internation- 
al trade  are  going  to  be  solved. 
However  they  may  be  solved,  we 
believe  that  our  company  should 
be  free  to  follow  the  desires  of 
our  Government.  We  want  to  be 
free  to  act  in  the  way  our  Gov- 
ernment wants  us  to  act,  when 
our  Government  wants  us  to 
act.  We  do  not  want  to  be  in  a 
position  of  having  to  postpone 
action  until  we  can  come  back  to 
our  stockholders  and  ask  them  to 
rescind  action  that  might  be 
taken  here  today  under  the  heat 
of  wartime  emotions  .  .  .  .  ' 

The  agreement  between  Bausch 
&  Lomb  and  Carl  Zeiss  as  to  mi- 
litary optical  instruments,  when 
terminated  by  consent  decree  in 
1940,  contained  the  following  pro- 
vision: 

Tf,  by  reason  of  unforeseen 
political  events,  the  execution  of 
this  contract  shall  be  made   im- 


possible, temporarily  or  perman- 
ently, or  the  firm  of  Carl  Zeiss 
limited  in  the  enjoyment  of  its 
full  license  claims,  this  agree- 
ment shall  be  suspended  for  such 
time  as  is  necessary  and  upon  an 
appeal,  a  board  of  arbitrators  as 
subsequently  designated,  shall 
make  such  dispositions  as  may 
seem  necessary  to  carry  out  as 
far  as  possible,  the  will  of  the 
parties  to  this  agreement,  under 
the  changed  conditions.' 

A  letter  from  the  American 
Rohm  &  Haas  Co.  to  I.  G.  Farben 
in  January  1940,  already  referred 
to  in  connection  with  a  promise 
to  serve  I.  G.'s  Latin  American 
customers  during  the  war,  con- 
tains a  further  promise  that:  'We 
shall  revert  to  the  status  quo  an- 
tem  as  soon  as  normal  conditions 
have  been  restored.' 

Plans  of  cartelization  after  the 
war  are  not  limited  to  the  re- 
sumption of  agreements  previ- 
ously in  effect.  There  are  a  con- 
siderable number  of  ambitious 
proposals  to  form  new  cartel 
agreements  and  greatly  extend 
the  scope  of  cartelization. 

Such  plans  are  of  two  types: 
First,  there  are  programs  in  par- 
ticular industries  to  eliminate 
competition  among  some  or  all  of 
the  concerns  engaged  therein. 

Second,  various  programs  have 
been  advanced  for  cartelization 
of    all    industries    with    the  .  ap- 


OCTOBER,  1944 


33 


Wgm3mgBSBfBS*iMr'  '"9*  m 


proval  of  the  governments  of  the 
principal  trading  nations.  In  a 
recent  discussion  with  the  presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce,  Lord  Mc- 
Gowan,  chairman  of  the  board  of 
Imperial  Chemical  Industries,  de- 
clared that  he  saw  no  hope  for 
postwar  cooperation  between 
British  and  American  business 
unless  the  American  Sherman 
Act  were  repealed.  One  of  the 
refugee  executives  of  the  N.  V. 
Philips  Co.  in  the  United  States 
nas  formulated  a  plan  for  general 
cartelization  after  the  war.  He  be  - 
lieves  that: 

'  .  .  .  Production  in  all  countries 
must  be  balanced  and  industry 
and  agriculture,  supported  by 
government,  must  agree  on  a 
sound  basis  of  international  dis- 
tribution. Certain  countries  may 
also  find  it  best  to  control  distri- 
bution within  their  own  borders. 

'So  far  as  world  trade  goes,  the 
instrument  is  the  international 
private  trade  agreement. 

'In  democratic  countries,  where 
freedom  is  the  guiding  principle, 
the  primary  parties  to  the  agree- 
ments should  be  the  producers. 
The  role  of  government  should 
be  limited  to  formulating  the 
rules  of  the  game  and  supervising 
their  enforcement,  to  stimulating 
private  initiative  where  neces- 
sary, to  arbitrating  where  private 
managements   cannot   agree,    and 


especially  to  watching  and  safe- 
guarding the  interest  of  the  con- 
sumer. An  impartial  internation- 
al body  should  be  set  up  to  ad- 
just differences  across  national 
borders. 

'There  should  be  a  group  in 
international  agreements  by  the 
principal  producers,  one  for  each 
important  industry  or  section  of 
agriculture — each  made  public 
and  each  approved  by  the  gov- 
ernments concerned.  This  sug- 
gested organization  is  not  a  car- 
tel system  as  cartels  existed  be- 
fore the  war.  Those  cartels  were 
arrangements  by  private  groups 
only  and  were — at  least  some  of 
them — activated  mainly  by  the 
selfish  interests  of  the  industry 
concerned.' 

The  most  ambitious  of  the  pub- 
licly announced  programs  is  that 
of  the  World  Trade  Alliance, 
which  is  promoted  from  England 
by  Sir  Edgar  Jones,  a  former 
director  of  Courtaulds,  Ltd.,  and 
an  executive  of  the  international 
tin  plate  cartel.  This  organization 
is  engaged  in  propaganda  for  an 
industry-wide  series  of  govern- 
mentally  sanctioned  cartel  agree- 
ments. It  holds  public  meetings, 
distributes  pamphlets,  and  has 
been  the  subject  of  a  broadcast 
beamed  to  the  United  States  by 
the  British  Broadcasting  Corpo- 
ration. The  Alliance  program  is 
based  upon  the  assertion  that  a 


34 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


HI 


H     ■ 


^H 


general  limitation  of  exports  by 
each  industry  in  order  to  assure 
satisfactory  prices  would  result 
in  enlargement  of  purchasing 
power,  stabilization  of  employ- 
ment, and  increase  in  consump- 
tion. A  summary  of  the  plan  by 
Sir  Edgar  Jones  declares: 

1.  That  it  has  been  proved 
that  it  is  feasible  and  practical 
to  establish  administrative  ma- 
chinery to  regulate  the  distribu- 
tion of  an  agreed  quantity  of  ex- 
port of  each  main  product  of 
every  country  at  a  stable  agreed 
world  economic  price.  .  .  . 

2.  What  is  wanted  now  is  to 
proclaim  the  fact  that  if  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States 
will  take  the  lead  and  get  the 
producers  of  each  main  product 
to  prepare  schemes  for  world  ex- 
port regulation  then  general  em- 
ployment can  be  insured. 

In  discussion  of  his  proposal, 
Sir  Edgar  asserts  that  it  requires 


two  basic  conditions: 

(1)  For  every  class  of  products 
the  organization  must  be  univer- 
sal. 

(2)  Raw  materials  must  be 
organized  as  well  as  manufac- 
tures. 

He  also  points  out  that  control 
of  exports  must  necessarily  be 
associated  with  similar  control  of 
internal  markets  in  each  partici- 
pating country. 

'Where  an  international  regu- 
lation of  production  and  distri- 
bution has  been  in  operation 
what  was  previously  impractical 
became  practical,  namely,  the 
regulation  of  domestic  production 
and  distribution  internally  within 
each  individual  country.  .  .  .  The 
reverse  has  also  arisen,  namely, 
the  necessity  for  internal  ar- 
rangements in  order  that  inter- 
national obligations  may  be  ful- 
filled. .  .  .' 


We  Can  Lose  the  Peace! 


if  LONDON,  Sept.  25. — The  campaign  against  international  cartels  initiated 
by  President  Roosevelt  last  week  has  received  a  surprising  amount  of  support 
from  various  sections  of  English  public  opinion  during  the  last  few  days. 

The  Daily  Express,  champion  of  private  enterprise,  started  the  ball  rolling 
with  an  editorial  commending  the  stand  of  the  President  and  the  United  States 
Justice  Department  against  cartels. 

'The  rooting  out  of  the  cartel,'  said  the  Express,  'must  not.  stop  short, at  its 
power  to  make  wars.  Peacetime  commerce  must  be  secured  against  the  menace 
of  agreements  that  throttle  enterprise.  The  British  people  need  not  go  to  Ameri- 
can sources  for  evidence  of  the  cartel  evil  between  wars.  They  have  plenty  in 
their  own  law  court  records.' 

The  Express  then  describes  how  Britain's  big  monopoly,  the  Imperial  Chemi- 
cal Industries,  paid  Magnesium  Electron,  Limited,  a  subsidy,  not  to  manufacture 
magnesium  by  a  method  which  also  produced  caustic  soda.    — New  York  Times 


OCTOBER,  1944 


35 


Who  Wants  Eggs,  Anyway? 


WHAT  might  be  termed  The 
Great  Egg  Scandal  is  upon 
us  once  again  in  greater  force 
than  ever  before.  From  all  ac- 
counts the  United  States  Office 
of  Price  Administration  could  do 
little  about  it,  so  the  U.S.  went 
on  bungling.  In  Manhattan  re- 
cently the  OPA  lifted  the  top 
ceiling  on  eggs  by  2c  a  dozen,  the 
second  increase  in  two  weeks, 
while  over  the  whole  of  the  U.S. 
egg  ceilings  have  been  raised 
some  8c  a  dozen  during  the  last 
two  months.  The  reason?  Hens 
are  beginning  their  vacation 
from  egg-laying,  but  that  does 
not  mean  we  are  about  to  face 
an  egg  scarcity — not  by  a  half- 
billion  eggs! 

That  is  the  figure  the  War 
Food  Administration  has  on  hand 
right  now  in  1,400,000  cases  of 
eggs,  and  the  WFA  is  still  franti- 
cally endeavouring  to  get  rid  of 
this  extraordinary  crop.  While 
warehouse  space  is  impossible  to 
obtain,  eggs  are  going  rotten;  and 
while  egg-men  recently  tried  to 
buy  47,000  cases  of  eggs  stored 
in  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  the 
WFA  turned  the  offer  down,  be- 
cause the  bids  were  not  as  high 
as  WFA's  rigid  high  ceilings.  And 
in  the  meantime,  still  more  eggs 


turned  rotten. 

Somewhat  belatedly  a  Senate 
Committe  began  probing  the  egg 
problem  a  little.  The  Deputy  Di- 
rector of  the  WFA,  Lieut.  Colonel 
Ralph  W.  Olmstead,  was  stated 
as  gingerly  reporting  to  the  Com- 
mittee that  if  WFA  had  not  sup- 
ported prices  the  U.S.  might  act- 
ually have  had  an  egg  shortage. 

Incredulously  Senator  Homer 
Ferguson,  of  Michigan,  asked: 
'Do  you  mean  to  say  that  the  A- 
merican  Taxpayers  have  invest- 
ed $100,000,000  to  $150,000,000  on 
eggs  we  have  no  use  for?' 

'That's  right,'  replied  Olmstead. 

'What  are  we  going  to  do  with 
the  eggs?'  asked  Senator  Fergu- 
son. 

And  Olmstead  could  only  re- 
ply: 'I  wish  I  knew.' 

The  one  thing  that  he  really 
did  know  was  that  WFA  is  going 
to  keep  on  buying  eggs  until  Con- 
gress tells  it  to  stop,  pointing  out 
that  when  Congress  receives  150 
telephone  calls  a  day  demanding 
that  they  support  the  price  of 
eggs  they  are  forced  into  being 
pretty  interested  in  seeing  that 
the  price  of  eggs  is  supported.    , 

Into  this  'barnyard  mess'  come 
the  squawks  of  Mayor  La 
Guardia,  flaying  the  Government 


36 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


—  •  ■       •         .      » 


1  I 


V1*' 


.'  >i       KM 

■ 

H 

because  it  has  failed  to  pass 
on  to  the  consumer  the  benefit 
of  egg  buyng.  He  stated:  'It  is 
unscientific,  uneconomical,  un- 
fair, and  most  wasteful  and  sin- 
ful for  the  Government  to  buy 
eggs  to  support  the  market  .... 
and  expect  to  sell  them  to  the 
consumers  at  the  same  price. 
Eggs  ought  to  be  sold  for  about 
75  percent  of  ceiling  price  to  the 
consumer.  The      Government 

could  then  recoup  75  percent  of 
its  investment  and  the  consumer 
would  get  the  benefit  of  low- 
priced  eggs.' 

That  the  balance  of  25  percent 
of  the  Government's  expendi- 
ture would  have  to  come  from 
the  consumer  through  the  medi- 
um of  taxation  did  not  seem  to 
occur  to  Mayor  La  Guardia,  or 
perhaps  he  thought  it  advisable 
to  gloss  over  this  mere  detail. 

What  a  mess!  What  a  revelation 
to  the  average  consumer  of  the 
United  States.  But  the  implica- 
tions as  far  as  Canada  is  con- 
cerned are  about  the  same.  Our 
agricultural  and  dairy  production 
has  doubled  since  1939,  and  when 
war  shipments  end  we  will  be 
faced  with  an  abundance  of  al- 
most every  farm  product  in  spite 
of  the  half-million  farm  hands 
who  have  moved  off  the  Cana- 
dian farm  since  the  war  began, 
many  never  to  return.  Wherever 
we   may   care   to   look   the   same 

OCTOBER,  1944 


spectre  stares  at  us  with  doleful 
eyes.  At  the  moment  in  the  Uni- 
ted States  it  is  'What  are  we  go- 
ing to  do  with  our  eggs?'  In  a 
little  while  in  Canada  it  will  be 
'What  are  we  going  to  do  with 
our  apples?'  The  contract  with 
the  United  Kingdom  for  apples 
was  cut  from  2,400,000  cases  to 
a  mere  800,000  cases.  Where  are 
we  going  to  sell  the  rest?  To 
prevent  a  'glut'  on  the  market, 
and  falling  price  levels,  the  pro- 
ducers may  well  apply  to  the 
Canadian  Government  to  buy  up 
the  surplus  apples  and  try  to  find 
a  place  in  which  to  store  them. 
That  would  be  one  way  out  of  the 
apple  situation. 

But  at  the  moment  in  the  U.S. 
it   is   eggs — and   still   more   eggs. 

In  June  the  situation  was 
similarly  desperate,  when  the 
War  Food  Administration  began 
to  dump  eggs  into  meat  scrap 
tankage  for  animal  food,  and  now 
in  order  to  'keep  up  the  price' 
Government  will  let  eggs  rot;  it 
will  permit  them  to  exude  the 
odor  of  sulphuretted  hydrogen 
and  the  Continent  may  stink  to 
high  heaven;  but  to  allow  the 
mass  distribution  of  these  eggs 
to  prevent  the  wastage  is  un- 
thinkable— it's  bad  for  business! 
A  typical  picture  of  Price  System 
puerile  pusillanimity  and  mor- 
onic  muddleheadedness. 

— Horace  W.   Carpenter 


37 


k.  ■     ■■ 


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^mmu^mm  BF^ 

Kft*.        HEW 


^k\W\  &9aa0      tram 


Canada  and  Immigration 

(Continued    from    last   month) 


WHAT  then  is  the  answer, 
gentlemen?  If  we  want  to 
have  more  water,  we  must  build 
a  higher  dam.  If  we  wish  to 
have  a  larger  population,  we 
must  turn  a  wise  survey  of  our 
resources,  a  bold  planning  for 
their  development,  a  brave  capi- 
talization of  every  authentic  pro- 
ject, and  an  unwearied  search 
for  markets  to  vindicate  our  ex- 
pansion. Take  care  of  the  devel- 
opment, and  the  population  will 
take  care  of  itself.  But  the  plan- 
ning, the  investing,  the  essential 
brain-and-money  work  must 
come  first.  Unless  Canadians  are 
incapable  of  profiting  by  past  ex- 
perience, that  is  the  conclusion 
they  will  draw  from  the  lament- 
able story  of  our  losses  in  popula- 
tion. Instead  of  indulging  in 
day-dreams  as  to  how  many  mil- 
lions can  come  streaming  in 
through  the  Atlantic  ports,  we 
need  to  turn  to  the  sober  practi- 
cal problem  of  so  opening  up  our 
resources  that  we  may  have  jobs 


From  an  address  delivered  at  the 
third  session  of  the  Manpower  Con- 
ference on  June  13,  1944,  by  Watson 
Kirkconnel,  Professor  of  English, 
McMaster  University.  Hamilton.  Re- 
printed from  the  Julv  issue  of  IN- 
DUSTRIAL CANADA  by  kind  per- 
mission  of   the   author. 


to  offer — jobs  for  our  own  native- 
born  and  jobs  for  newer  citizens- 
to-be. 

The  task  will  not  be  easy.  Al- 
though we  have  been  told  on 
every  Dominion  Day  since  1867 
that  Canada  has  'unlimited  na- 
tural resources,'  yet  our  respon- 
sible authorities  give  us  no  such 
assurance.  Let  us  run  hastily 
over  some  of  these  'unlimited  re- 
sources,' so  that  we  may  appreci- 
ate the  problems  of  the  planners: 

(1)  First,  take  the  soil.  Here 
we  have  about  325,000  square 
miles,  of  which  256,700  square 
miles  are  occupied.  Manitoba 
and  Saskatchewan,  for  example, 
report  to  the  Rowell-Sirois  Com- 
mission that  they  had  virtually 
no  land  left  for  settlement.  The 
main  area  still  available  is  in  the 
Peace  River  district,  where  soil 
experts  anticipate  a  possible  in- 
crease, in  the  next  20  years,  of 
perhaps  250,000  persons.  Whole- 
sale clearing  by  peacetime  troops 
with  bull-dozers,  so  as  to  give 
each  settler  fifty  acres  cleared  to 
start  with,  would  be  one  sort  of 
guarantee  of  speedy  and  perman- 
ent settlement.  An  experiment 
at  Kapuskasing,  in  the  Ontario 
Clay  Belt,  at  the  close  of  the  last 
war,  where  each  man  was  given 


38 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


Bfil 

^H     SUN  e4 


only  ten  acres  cleared,  proved  a 
complete  failure. 

More     serious,     however,  than 
this  comparative  lack     of     good 
new  land  to  develop,  is  the  rapid 
deterioration    of   the    soil    in    the 
regions    that   are    occupied.      For 
example,    the      1942      report     on 
'Conservation  and  Post-War  Re- 
habilitation,' prepared  by  the  so- 
called    Guelph    Conference,    pre- 
sents a  picture  of     grim     decay 
right   here    in   southern    Ontario. 
Some   of   you   are   aware   of   the 
report,  but  we  cannot  read  it  too 
often.    Let  me  quote:  'All  renew- 
able natural  resources  of  south- 
ern Ontario  are  seriously  deplet- 
ed.    Soil  is  impoverished;  water 
is  becoming  less  available;   what 
water  remains  is  largely  polluted; 
forest  cover  is  decreasing;  erosion 
is   increasing;    and   wild   life   has 
diminished  in  abundance  ....  In 
short,    unplanned  exploitation   of 
the  renewable  natural  resources 
of  the  province  has     gravely  re- 
duced their  productivity  and  has 
established   a   progressive   degra- 
dation which  will  end  in  sterility 
unless      control      measures      are 
adopted.'  That  is  a  story  than  can 
be     repeated     of     rural     Canada 
everywhere.     The  verdict  of  our 
scientists  on  our  resources  of  soil 
is  that  we  have  'established  a  pro- 
gressive    degradation     that     will 
end   in   sterility.'      Of  the   30,000 
square  miles  of  farm  lands  in  Old 


Ontario,  upward  of  8,000  square 
miles  are  now  seriously  dismant- 
led, and  the  process  goes  on 
apace.  The  remedies  for  the 
erosion  are  fairly  well  known — 
reforestation,  contour  ploughing, 
and  the  building  of  ponds  and 
dams — but  as  the  report  points 
out,  'it  may  fairly  be  said  that 
nothing  is  being  done  to  cope 
with  it.' 

Instead,  therefore,  of  gaily 
counting  in  advance  the  millions 
of  new  farmers  that  we  are  going 
to  settle  on  our  land,  we  shall 
need  to  make  sure  that  our 
grandchildren  do  not  face  an  arid 
countryside  of  sand-dunes  and 
empty  wells  and  starving  live- 
stock. 

(2)  Next  let  us  consider  our 
forests.  The  Encyclopaedia  Bri- 
tannica  (1943  edition,  vol.  ix,  p. 
504)  gives  the  following  rather 
alarming  summary  of  our  present 
timber  situation:  'The  forests  are 
being  destroyed  from  two  to  two 
and  a  half  times  faster  than  they 
are  being  grown.  Taking  an  an- 
nual drain  upon  the  forests  of 
five  billion  cubic  feet,  the  acces- 
sible stands  of  virgin  forests  will 
be  exhausted  in  about  25  years.' 
Instead,  therefore,  of  being 
able  to  expand  our  timber  cut- 
ting to  take  care  of  a  larger  popu- 
lation, we  shall  face  timber  bank- 
ruptcy unless  we  reduce  our  cut 
or  else  eliminate  the  present  loss 


OCTOBER,  1944 


39 


iWnwtrFrtrflKlJTlTi 


of  a  billion  cubic  feet  a  year 
through  fire,  insects  and  disease, 
employ  less  wasteful  industrial 
processes,  and  undertake  large 
scale  scientific  forest  culture. 

(3)  The  fishery  resources  of 
Canada  are  very  important,  as 
two  of  the  four  great  sea-fishing 
areas  of  the  world  border  on 
Canada.  The  total  number  of 
persons  engaged  in  fishing  or  in 
fish-canning  in  1938  was  almost 
87,000.  It  is  probable,  however, 
that  without  careful  measures  of 
conservation  and  fish  culture,  we 
have  reached  the  peak  of  devel- 
opment. 

(4)  Trapping  and  fur-farming 
will  continue  to  be  of  economic 
importance,  but  do  not  represent, 
a  large  outlet  for  population. 

(5)  Canada's  power  resources 
are  very  extensive,  with  a  pos- 
sible turbine  installation  of  over 
43,000,000  horse-power,  of  which 
only  19  percent  has  been  devel- 
oped. Much  of  the  potential 
power  is  isolated,  however,  in  the 
remoter  districts  of  Manitoba 
and  Quebec,  where  it  must  wait 
on  co-ordination  with  mineral 
extraction   or   manufacturing. 

(6)  When  we  turn  to  mining, 
today  second  only  to  agriculture 
as  a  basic  industry  in  Canada,  we 
find  the  resource  that  is  most 
likely  to  permit  great  expansion 
in  the  years  that  he  ahead.  I  say 
'likely'   rather  than  'certain'   be- 


cause prospecting,  like  horse 
racing,  is  full  of  unpredictable 
hazards,  and  because  only  limit- 
ed areas  of  our  great  North  have 
so  far  revealed  treasures  for  the 
miner. 

In  the  Globe  and  Mail  for  May 
21,  1943,  there  appeared  a  most 
significant  statement  by  the  Hon. 
Robert  Laurier,  then  Minister  of 
Mines  in  the  Ontario  Govern- 
ment. 'The  Ontario  Department 
of  Mines,'  said  Mr.  Laurier,  'has 
long  been  conscious  of  the  fact 
that  the  position  of  its  mining  in- 
dustry was  not  economically 
sound.  It  has  also  been  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  the  interests  of  the 
people  of  the  province  and  the 
Dominion  were  seriously  jeop- 
ardized by  the  fact  that  proven 
ore  deposits  were  being  depleted 
at  a  rate  far  in  excess  of  replace- 
ments.' 

While  this  does  not  necessarily 
mean  that  Canada's  minerals 
will  soon  be  exhausted,  it  does 
mean  that  such  known  deposits 
as  are  accessible  and  capable  of 
being  worked  on  terms  of  world 
competition  are  being  used  up  at 
a  prodigal  rate.  What  we  shall 
need  is  an  extensive  and  vigorous 
programme  of  prospecting  for 
new  mines  and  an  endeavor  to 
"develop  the  great  known  re- 
sources of  the  Canadian  prairies, 
the  Subarctic,  and  even  the  Arc- 
tic archipelago,  most     of     which 


40 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


Be 


■ 


have  hitherto  been  regarded  as 
being  too  remote  to  be  of  any 
economic  significance. 

(7)  Most  important  of  all,  per- 
haps, is  the  development  of  new 
secondary  manufacturing  enter- 
prises, dependent  on  the  primary 
extractive  industries.  What  these 
should  be,  I  feel  scarcely  com- 
petent to  enumerate.  It  might 
be,  for  instance,  that  the  field  of 
ceramics  could  undertake  great 
expansion,  or  that  the  use  of 
wheat-straw  for  paper  (now  suc- 
cessfully begun)  could  be  much 
extended.  The  whole  field  of  in- 
dustrial chemistry  opens  up  vast 
possibilities.  It  would  take  us  320 
years,  at  our  past  maximum  rate 
of  growth,  to  have  enough  people 
in  Canada  to  consume  our  pre- 
sent wheat  crop;  but  a  large  frac- 
tion of  the  same  acreage  put  into 
cellulose-crops  for  plastics  might 
help  to  bring  our  economy  more 
into  balance.  Alkalis  from  brine, 
nitrates  from  atmospheric  nitro- 
gen, synthetic  dyes  from  coal  or 
wood  pulp,  inexhaustible  food 
supplies  from  sea-weeds  and 
plankton,  an  expansion  of  the  use 
of  light  metals — there  are  scores 
of  ways  in  which  biochemical  and 
metallurgical  science  may  contri- 
bute to  the  expansion  of  our  in- 
dustry. The  replacement  of  our 
crowded  urban  slums  by  hygienic 
homes  in  healthy  surroundings — 
after  the  fashion  that  I  admired 


six  years  ago  in  the  Scandina- 
vian countries — would  give  our 
architects  and  builders  full  em- 
ployment for  a   generation. 

Much  of  the  development, 
moreover,  will  need  to  be  posi- 
tively new.  It  is  well  to  remem- 
ber that  the  addition  of  extra 
factories  in  an  existing  industry 
in  Canada  would  not  necessarily 
result  in  a  clear  addition  to  the 
national  output.  The  United 
States  Commissioner  for  Labour 
Statistics  stated  about  15  years 
ago  that  if  200  of  the  1,357  boot 
and  shoe  factories  in  that  coun- 
try worked  full  time,  they  could 
satisfy  the  whole  existing  de- 
mand, and  the  remaining  1,157 
establishments  could  be  closed 
down.  Hence,  if  all  of  Britain's 
boot  and  shoe  firms  over  and 
above  Britain's  domestic  needs 
were  transferred  to  Canada,  they 
could  scarcely  hope  to  compete 
in  the  American  market,  they 
might  well  find  the  Canadian 
market  already  saturated,  and 
they  would  have  assumed  the 
cost  of  transatlantic  shipping  as 
an  almost  fatal  handicap  in  the 
European  market. 

That  brings  me  to  the  all-im- 
portant but  all-uncertain  ques- 
tion of  markets.  For  economic  ex- 
pansion, we  must  have  access  to 
extensive  and  varied  markets, 
and  our  Commercial  Intelligence 
service  will  be  taxed  to  the  ut- 


I  ■ 

■  ■ 


«iK\WiE#< 


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m 


OCTOBER,  1944 


41 


■  JR 

WBvs 

Buf&7 

I     ■ 


JKL 


most  in  its  endeavors  to  find  an 
outlet  for  Canadian  products. 
Mr.  C  M.  Croft,  the  Director  of 
that  Branch  of  the  Department 
of  Trade  and  Commerce,  has  ev- 
en pointed  out  that  at  the  end  of 
the  war  some  of  our  former  mar- 
kets may  be  permanently  lost  to 
us. 

We  shall  also  need  to  consider 
the  necessity  of  import  trade.  The 
Canadian  manufacturer  cannot 
expect  to  have  the  Canadian 
market  entirely  to  himself  if  Ca- 
nadian products  are  to  be  sold 
abroad.  As  Lord  de  la  Warr  re- 
cently warned  the  Canadian  Club 
of  Toronto,  'there  is  only  one  re- 
cognized way  of  payment — by 
accepting  goods.'  The  whole 
development  of  the  Canadian 
economy  is  going  to  be  condi- 
tioned by  our  import  and  export 
trade,  and  until  we  know  more 
of  such  post-war  factors,  much 
of  our  planning  is  pure  guess- 
work. 

In  spite  of  all  these  elements 
of  uncertainty,  some  of  you  may 
still  be  expecting  me  to  give  ac- 
tual estimates  of  the  numbers 
whom   we   might   take    in   under 


the  most  favourable  conditions. 
Let  me  refer  again  to  the  past. 
Our  previous  maximum  in 
growth  was  180,000  a  year,  dur- 
ing the  decade  1901-1911,  when 
we  were  opening  up  the  Prairies 
on  a  large  scale.  If  we  had  anoth- 
er Northwest  to  settle  (which  we 
have  not)  or  if,  as  the  only  pos- 
sible alternative,  we  could  de- 
velop our  mineral  resources  and 
existing  farm  output  to  an  equi- 
valent extent  and  find  new  mar- 
kets for  that  extra  amount  of 
trade,  then  we  might  hope  again 
to  reach  that  peak  growth  of 
180,000  a  year.  Our  own  natural 
increase,  however,  is  130,000  a 
year,  and  if  a  closed  American 
frontier  did  not  permit  us  to  give 
the  States  an  annual  gift  of  130,- 
000  Canadians,  then  the  most  we 
could  hope  to  absorb  from  abroad 
would  be  50,000  immigrants  a 
year.  At  that  rate,  it  would  take 
20  years  to  bring  in  one  million 
new  citizens.  Our  own  natural 
increase  in  itself,  if  we  can  main- 
tain and  retain  it,  will  give  us  a 
population  of  20  millions  to  pro- 
vide for  by  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury. 


*  STANDARD  OIL  of  New  Jersey  turned  in  a  whopping  $71,000,000  of 
estimated  profit  at  midyear  compared  with  $48,000,000  for  the  same  period 
of  1943.  Socony-Vacuum  Oil  Co.  pocketed  $7,800,000  against  $5,700,000  the 
previous  year.  Eying  this  flowing  gold,  many  a  Wall  Streeter  boldly  pre- 
dicted that  the  industry  may  boost  its  year's  earnings  40  percent  over  1943. 
Cracked  one  oil  man:  'We're  almost  ashamed  the  way  the  money  rolls  in.' 

— Time,   August    14,    1944 


42 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


'Business  as  a  System  of  Power' 


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^1           P»%! 

A  Book  Review* 


IN  his  foreword  to  Business  as 
a  System  of  Power,  Professor 
Robert  S.  Lynd  says:  'In  this 
book  Dr.  Brady  cuts  through  to 
the  central  problem  disrupting 
our  world,  the  most  dangerous 
issue  democracy  faces.  This 
problem  is  not  basically  created 
by  Adolph  Hitler  and  the  Axis 
nations,  but  by  the  organized 
economic  power  backing  the  Hit- 
lers in  nation  after  nation  over 
the  industrial  world  as  a  device 
for  shoring  up  yet  a  while  longer 
a  disintegrating  economic  system 
....  Liberal  democracy  has 
never  dared  face  the  fact  that 
industrial  capitalism  is  an  in- 
tensely coercive  form  of  organi- 
zation of  society  that  cumulative- 
ly constrains  men  and  all  of 
their  institutions  to  work  the  will 
of  the  minority  who  hold  and 
wield  economic  power;  and  that 
this  relentless  warping  of  men's 
lives  and  forms  of  society  be- 
comes less  and  less  the  result  of 
voluntary  decisions  by  "bad"  or 
"good"  men  and  more  and  more 


♦BUSINESS  AS  A  SYSTEM  OF 
POWER  by  Robert  A.  Brady  is  pub- 
lished by  the  Columbia  University 
Press,  New  York.  Canadian  Price: 
$4.50. 


an  impersonal  web  of  coercions 
dictated  by  the  need  to  keep  "the 
system"  running.' 

Dr.  Brady  establishes  this  the- 
sis in  330  pages  of  scholarly  docu- 
mentation, making  Business  as  a 
System  of  Power  one  of  the  most 
important  books  that  have  ap- 
peared in  America  during  the 
past  decade. 

To  prove  his  point  Dr.  Brady 
wanders  over  the  face  of  the 
earth  and  examines  closely  the 
social  systems  of  all  the  major 
countries  except  Russia:  Ger- 
many, Italy,  Japan,  France, 
Great  Britain,  and  the  United 
States.  In  each  of  his  case  his- 
tories he  finds  an  ever-increasng 
concentration  of  business  and 
economic  power  through  mono- 
poly and  the  cartel. 

In  Germany  even  before  the 
Nazis  took  over,  this  concentra- 
tion of  control  had  gone  so  far 
that  ten  companies  produced 
68.98  percent  of  the  total  coal 
output  and  employed  67.88  per- 
cent of  all  labor;  three  concerns 
produced  68.8  percent  of  all  pig 
iron — one  concern  produced  50 
percent;  four  concerns  produced 
68.3  percent  of  all  crude  steel — 
one  concern  produced  43  percent; 


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OCTOBER,  1944 


43 


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in  the  manufacture  of  electrical 
machinery  and  goods  1.9  percent 
of  all  firms  employed  66.1  per- 
cent of  all  persons — two  firms 
completely  dominated  both  the 
'heavy'  and  'light'  current  fields; 
two-thirds  of  the  production  and 
delivery  of  all  German  public 
electrical  enterprises  were  con- 
centrated in  the  hands  of  seven 
companies — two  companies  de- 
livered over  40  percent  of  the 
total  power  consumed  in  1929-30; 
in  chemicals,  one  company,  the 
vast  I.  G.  Farbenindustrie,  own- 
ed 35  percent  of  all  invested 
capital  and  employed  over  one- 
third  of  all  employees;  a  closed 
syndicate  ('forced  cartel')  gov- 
erned the  entire  potash  industry 
— four  of  the  leading  mine  con- 
cerns controlled  about  77  percent 
of  the  industry's  quotas;  and  two 
combines  completely  dominated 
all  overseas  shipping. 

Germany's  four  industrial  car- 
tels of  1865  and  300  of  1900  had 
increased  to  2,100  in  1930.  In  an 
address  before  the  American  Bar 
Association,  July  10,  1939,  Thur- 
man  Arnold  declared:  'Germany 
presents  the  logical  end  of  the 
process  of  cartelization.  From 
1923  to  1935  cartelization  grew 
in  Germany  until  finally  that 
nation  was  so  organized  that 
everyone  had  to  belong  either  to 
a  squad,  a  regiment  or  a  brigade 
in  order  to  survive.     The  names 


given  to  these  squads,  regiments 
or  brigades  were  cartels,  trade 
associations,  unions,  and  trusts. 
Such  a  distribution  system  could 
not  adjust  its  prices.  It  needed 
a  general  with  quasi-military 
authority  who  could  order  the 
workers  to  work  and  the  mills 
to  produce.  Hitler  named  him- 
self that  general.  Had  it  not 
been  Hitler  it  would  have  been 
someone   else.' 

In  Italy,  Dr.  Brady  says,  'the 
structure  of  the  system  has,  in 
ways  but  slightly  different  from 
the  mechanism  of  the  Hitler 
variant,  shown  that  the  attempt 
to  carry  through  some  such  a 
program  of  coordinated  defini- 
tive and  all-inclusive  class  con- 
trols, presents  but  a  limited 
series  of  organizational  alterna- 
tives. Hierarchy  is  of  the  es- 
sence of  its  structure.  Authority 
comes  from  the  top  down  in  all 
things,  and  responsibility  from 
the  bottom  up.' 

Dr.  Brady  states  that  five  maj- 
or bureaucracies  are  coordinated 
into  the  fascist  totalitarian  pro- 
gram: those  of  the  economic 
world,  the  army,  the  church,  the 
civil  service,  and  the  Fascist 
Party.  He  defines  the  Italian 
Corporate  System  as  'that  mor- 
ganatic alliance  between  organiz- 
ed, Italian,  patrimonial  capital- 
ism and  the  type  of  feudal  con- 
trols long  advocated  by  the  Pa- 


44 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


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pacy,  from  which  it  was  hoped 
to  find  at  once  an  end  to  class 
war  and  full  defense  of  the  ex- 
isting social-economic  status  quo.' 

The  chapter  on  'Japan:  Koku- 
tai  and  the  "Co-Prosperity 
Sphere"  '  quotes  Mr.  Ogura,  head 
of  the  immense  Sumitomo  in- 
terests, as  saying  upon  his  ap- 
pointment as  'economic  dictator 
of  Japan'  that  'the  economic 
world  needs  a  guiding  hand  to 
direct  its  diverse  energies.' 
Flanked  by  a  brain  trust  of  busi- 
nessmen, Mr.  Ogura  became  sup- 
reme economic  coordinator  of 
Japanese  industry  under  the  sys- 
tem of  'private  enterprise.'  'Pri- 
vate enterprise,'  how  many  eco- 
nomic sins  have  been  committed 
in  thy  name! 

Dr.  Brady  points  out  that  Jap- 
anese development  is  'similar  to 
that  of  Germany,  where  the  in- 
terdependence between  banking 
and  industry  has  been  extremely 
close  from  the  very  beginning. 
Yet  the  degree  of  control  over 
both  fields  is  not  only  more 
closely  held  in  Japan  than  in 
Germany,  but  the  fact  that  in 
Japan  as  in  no  other  country  of 
the  world,  the  general  public  puts 
its  money  into  savings  accounts 
as  fixed  deposits  rather  than  in- 
to industrial  securities  tends  still 
further  to  enhance  the  impor- 
tance of  this  interlinkage.'  He 
quotes  Allen's  The  Concentration 


of  Economic  Control  in  Japan  to 

show  how  the  financial  institu- 
tions thus  can  play  a  dominant 
role  in  the  development  of  in- 
dustry- "The  small  producers, 
who  are  in  the  aggregate  respon- 
sible for  the  larger  proportion 
of  the  output  of  consumable 
goods,  are  financed  by  mer- 
chants, who,  in  turn,  obtain  the 
bulk  of  their  resources  from  the 
great  banks.'  Consequently,  in 
the  words  of  W.  H.  Chamberlin 
in  Japan  Over  Asia:  'One  can 
scarcely  go  into  any  corner  of  the 
Japanese  Empire  without  finding 
one  of  the  big  capitalist  combines 
firmly  entrenched  and  skimming 
the  cream  of  whatever  profits 
are  to  be  made.' 

The  chapter  on  'Britain's 
"Feudalistic  System  of  Cartel 
Controls"  '  states  unequivocally: 
'For  Britain,  regardless  of  the 
outcome  of  the  current  struggle, 
the  old  order  is  doomed.  As 
clearly  as  elsewhere,  centralized 
policy  controlling  power  in  busi- 
ness is  in  the  cards!' 

Specially  significant  in  the 
survey  of  Britain's  social  struc- 
ture is  the  documentation  on  the 
fusion  of  business  and  govern- 
ment. According  to  a  recent 
compilation  from  the  Directory 
of  Directors,  the  Stock  Exchange 
Year-Book,  and  other  sources, 
181  of  the  415  Parliamentary 
supporters  of  the  National  Gov- 


■ 


Ifll 


Kltolf 


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OCTOBER,  1944 


45 


'jsm 


Jerks 


ernment  possessed  some  775  cor- 
porate directorships.  'These 
ranged  over  the  entire  business 
field,  but  appear  to  be  largely 
concentrated  in  the  big,  national 
and  Empire-wide  trading,  ship- 
ping, manufacturing,  and  finan- 
cial enterprises.' 

A  book  by  an  English  business- 
man, N.  E.  H.  Davenport,  re- 
viewed in  the  London  New 
Statesman  and  Nation  for  August 
15,  1942,  boldly  proclaims  the 
seriousness  of  the  situation:  'He 
(Davenport)  shows,  in  effect,' 
says  the  review,  'that  what  has 
happened  is  that  vested  interests 
of  monopoly  capitalism  have,  for 
all  practical  purposes  taken  over 
the  government  of  the  country. 
Behind  the  facade  of  political  de- 
mocracy they  are  preparing  the 
economic  foundations  of  the  cor- 
porate state  .  .  .  (Mr.  Davenport) 
has  made  it  clear  beyond  dis- 
cussion that  unless  we  are  able 
very  soon  to  persuade  or  compel 
the  Prime  Minister  to  swift  and 
profound  changes  in  his  econo- 
mic policy,  we  shall  defeat  Hit- 
ler only  to  be  delivered  into  the 
hands  of  the  same  type  of  men 
for  whom  a  Hitler  is  a  necessary 
instrument.' 

The  chapter  on  'The  American 
Way:  "Business  Self-Regimenta- 
tion" '  demonstrates  that  the  eco- 
nomic history  of  corporate  enter- 
prise   in    the    United    States    has 


paralleled  that  of  the  countries 
dealt  with  previously. 

'A  large  number  of  the  leading 
U.S.  trade  associations  have  been 
transformed  into  cartels,  possess- 
ing powers  similar  to  those  of 
their  European  national  and  in- 
ternational prototypes.  Many  of 
the  trade  associations  have  ad- 
vanced so  far  along  this  line  as 
to  approach  in  function  the 
higher  states  of  combined  action 
which  lead  to  the  syndicates 
(central  selling  agencies  for  car- 
tels) and  communities  of  inter- 
est (working  arrangements  so 
close  as  to  constitute  monopoly 
action) .' 

The  well-publicized  testimony 
given  by  a  Dun  and  Bradstreet 
representative  to  the  Temporary 
National  Economic  Committee  is 
cited  as  evidence  of  the  'rather 
spectacular  concentration  of  cor- 
porate holdings.'  The  output  of 
automobiles  was  dominated  to 
the  extent  of  86  percent  by  three 
companies;  47  percent  of  the  beef 
products  business  by  two  com- 
panies; 20  percent  of  the  bread 
and  other  bakery  products  by 
three  companies;  90  percent  of 
the  can  output  by  three  com- 
panies; 78  percent  of  the  copper 
by  four;  40  percent  of  the  cement 
by  five;  80  percent  of  the  cigar- 
ettes by  three;  95  percent  of  the 
plate  glass  by  two;  64  percent  of 
the  iron  ore  by  four;  60.5  percent 


46 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


JM 


i 


of  the  steel  by  three;  and  so  on. 

Most  of  the  chapter  is  devoted 
to  showing  how  the  economic 
power  of  the  National  Associa- 
tion of  Manufacturers  has  grown 
till  it  permeates  every  field  of 
U.S.  industrial  activity.  And 
even  within  the  NAM  itself  a 
small  coterie  of  giant  concerns 
dbminate  most  of  its  policies. 
While  the  NAM  claimed  approxi- 
mately 4,000  corporate  members 
for  the  year  1938,  all  of  its  direc- 
torships together,  for  the  period 
1933-1937  inclusive,  represented 
only  127  individuals  from  89 
firms. 

In  dealing  with  the  propaganda 
program  of  the  NAM,  Dr.  Brady 
says:  'All  economic  issues  are 
transmuted  into  terms  of  social 
and  cultural  issues,  increasingly, 
as  the  political  implications  and 
the  military  possibilities  of  cumu- 
lated economic  power  are  realiz- 
ed. Propaganda  then  becomes  a 
matter  of  converting  the  public, 
or  all  the  special  divisions  of  the 
public — small  businessmen,  con- 
sumers, labor,  farmers,  house- 
wives— to  the  point  of  view  of 
the  control  pyramid.  This  ac- 
counts for  the  vast  outpouring 
of  so-called  "educational"  litera- 
ture of  the  NAM,  now  designed 
to  enter  into  every  nook  and 
cranny  of  American  life,  econo- 
mic, political,  social,  and  cultural 
.  .  .  The  propaganda  is  an  ideo- 

OCTOBER,  1944 


logical  outpouring.' 

These  are  the  surface  tenden- 
cies in  each  country  that  has 
been  examined;  what  are  the  un- 
derlying  trends? 

From  the  outset  Dr.  Brady  re- 
cognizes the  important  part  that 
technology  has  played.  In  his 
introduction  he  states:  'Attempts 
to  unify  business  on  an  ever 
more  comprehensive  basis  are  in- 
evitable. For  how  else  is  it  pos- 
sible to  cope  with  the  adminis- 
trative and  managerial  problems 
of  an  industrial  technology  which 
has  for  decades  been  moving  to- 
ward such  a  policy?  .  .  .  Finely 
meshed  networks  of  transporta- 
tion, communication,  and  energy 
bind  the  whole  more  closely  and 
rigorously  together  with  each 
passing  day  ....  Integration,  co- 
ordination, planning,  these  are 
the  very  root  and  marrow,  the 
essence  and  the  spirit  of  the  in- 
dustrial system  as  it  is  being 
developed  in  our  times.  In  these 
respects  changes  are  unidirec- 
tional, additive,  and  cumulative. 
From  them  there  is  no  turning 
back.  And,  as  the  bitterly  fought 
issues  of  the  Second  World  War 
— a  "total  war"  which  pits  entire 
economic  systems  against  each 
other — have  made  abundantly 
plain,  the  end  is  not  yet.' 

Paralleling  this  trend  of  tech- 
nological tenuousness,  the  busi- 
nessmen are  weaving  their  webs 


47 


wX  3.  as  PW 

HI  BSMlBlilflOJr 


of  business  control.  Finally  they 
reach  a  point  when  a  choice  of 
direction  is  forced  upon  them. 

One  way  leads  to  totalitarian- 
ism. This  is  the  path  that  has 
been  trodden  by  organized  busi- 
ness in  Germany,  Italy,  and  Ja- 
pan. All  the  minor  rackets  are 
consolidated  into  a  major  mono- 
poly for  the  preservation  of  the 
Price  System.  In  short,  a  fascist 
control  is   established. 

'The  contrasting  choice  (here 
Dr.  Brady  becomes  vague  and 
undecided  for  almost  the  only 
time  in  this  book)  is  to  force  the 
growth  of  a  sense  of  responsibili- 
ty to  democratic  institutions,  not 
by  transmuting  arbitrary  controls 
to  patriarchial  relationships,  how- 
ever mellowed  and  benevolently 
postured,  but  by  steadily  widen- 
ing the  latitude  for  direct  public 
participation  in  the  formulation 
of  economic  policies  affecting  the 
public  interests.  How,  is  not  for 
us  to  say.' 

Technocracy  points  out  that 
North  America  has  neither  of  the 
choices  that  Dr.  Brady  has  out- 
lined. The  countries  of  Europe 
and  Asia  have  many  alternatives 
and  years  to  decide  the  path  they 
shall  take.  But  this  Continent 
has  gone  so  far  in  its  technologi- 
cal production  of  physical  wealth 
that  we  have  only  one  alternative 
to  chaos.  And  only  a  total  war 
has  enabled  us  to  postpone  tem- 


porarily our  technological  ren- 
dezvous with  destiny. 

Technocracy  states  unequivo- 
cally that  North  America  cannot 
solve  her  present  economic  dil- 
emma through  a  business  olig- 
archy, a  government  bureau- 
cracy, or  even  democracy  as  we 
have  known  it.  And  there  is  no 
middle  way. 

North  America  must  install  the 
most  revolutionary  social  rede- 
sign in  the  history  of  man.  Such 
a  design  will  be  neither  a  mana- 
gerial society,  elite  rule,  nor  a 
dictatorship  by  the  engineer.  It 
will  be  a  society  of  function — a 
Technocracy. 

With  the  advent  of  Technoc- 
racy, we  shall  not  only  eliminate 
business  as  a  system  of  power, 
we  shall  do  away  with  business 
in  its  entirety.  Monopolies  and 
cartels  will  cease  to  exist,  and 
there  will  be  no  restrictions  up- 
on production  other  than  the 
physical  limitations  of  natural  re- 
sources and  the  capacity  of  the 
citizenry  to  consume  goods.  Pro- 
duction will  be  geared  to  con- 
sumption and  distributed  with- 
out monetary  price.  A  metrical 
medium  of  distribution  (the  En- 
ergy Certificate)  will  replace  our 
fluctuating  medium  of  exchange. 

Authority  will  come  from  the 
bottom,  and  responsibility  from 
the  top.  Through  their  Energy 
Certificates  the  people  will  auto- 


48 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


M 


■      ■ 


■    ■ 


matically  say  what  is  to  be  pro- 
duced, and  the  Functional  Con- 
trol will  have  the  responsibility 
of  fulfilling  consumer  require- 
ments. 

For  the  first  time  we  shall  have 
a  physical  democracy  of  distribu- 
tion. And  when  that  happens, 
instead  of  being  a  vague,  ethereal 
imponderable,      democracy      will 


become  something  real  and  tang- 
ible that  we  can  sink  a  tooth  into. 
The  dying  Price  System  is 
making  its  last  ditch  stand.  We 
need  bold  action  now.  North 
Americans,  close  your  ranks  and 
march  forward  in  the  firm  know- 
ledge that  you  can  banish  politi- 
cal and  economic  power  and  pri- 
vilege forever  from  this  Contin- 
ent. — Donald  Bruce 


Our  Rendezvous  With  Destiny 


ir  I  BELIEVE  that  scientists  and  engineers — if  they  care  at  all  about  democ- 
racy— face  today  a  choice  they  have  never  before  in  our  national  life  been 
forced  to  make.  From  now  on  it  is  going  to  be  increasingly  difficult  to  dodge 
this  choice  and  to  pretend  to  be  neutral. 

The  choice  is  nothing  less  than  a  choice  between:  working  as  a  scientist 
or  engineer  for  a  monopoly  big  business-run  state  moving  in  the  direction  of 
fascism  or  working  for  an  all-out  extension  of  democracy  to  our  economy, 
involving  large-scale  public  control  and  the  goal  of  mass-welfare  rather  than 
profits  .... 

Internally,  nations  like  the  United  States  and  Britain  are  forced  today  to 
recognize  and  to  do  something  about  full  employment,  the  business  cycle,  and 
the  increasing  frustration  of  superb  technology,  with  its  social  concomitant 
of  poverty  in  the  midst  of  adequacy;  and,  as  a  nation  committed  by  habit  and 
institution  to  playing  down  the  role  of  government  and  to  reliance  on  scattered 
individual  enterprise,  we  have  to  recognize  and  to  do  something  about  central- 
ized planning  .... 

If  we  have  no  choice  regarding  the  need  to  streamline  power  and  the  neces- 
sity for  central  planning,  the  choice  we  do  have  is  a  momentous  one.  It  con- 
cerns: (1)  Whether  monopoly  big  business  will  move  in  and  take  over  the 
government  apparatus  and  run  the  nation  in  an  increasingly  fascist  direction; 
or  (2)  Whether  democracy  will  take  over  technology  and  other  basic  resources 
and  run  them  for  mass  welfare.  — Robert  S.  Lynd  in  P.M.,  July  16,  1944 

ir  WASHINGTON,  Sept.  4. — Congress  received  a  warning  last  week  from  At- 
torney-General Biddle  that  there  can  be  no  lasting  peace  until  the  power  of 
German-controlled  international  cartels  is  broken. 

'A  peace  with  Germany  which  leaves  those  companies  intact  will  be  a  peace 
to  insure  another  war,'  he  said.  'The  period  between  the  last  and  the  present 
world  war  was  only  an  armistice  during  which  the  firms  of  Germany  conducted 
a  war  against  us.' 

Operating  as  agencies  of  the  Nazi  government,  Mr.  Biddle  said,  they  set  up 
dummy  subsidiaries  in  other  countries  to  manufacture  forbidden  muriitions  and 
worked  through  trade  agreements  to  'cripple  American  production,  gain  the 
technical  know-how,  and  conduct  espionage.' 

— Free  Press  Weekly  Prairie  Farmer 


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An  Open  Letter  to  Business 


BUSINESSMEN  today  are  neither  fools  nor  are  they  merely  naive,  and 
they  sense  that  all  may  not  go  well  with  their  postwar  world.  They  are 
correct.  This  World  War  II  business  boom  cannot  last — but  just  where 
a  return  to  prewar  'business  as  usual'  will  lead  them  and  the  country  is  tan- 
talizingly    hazy    to    them. 

Business  agrees  that  the  present  boom  which  has  doubled  Canadian  pro- 
duction directly  results  from  war,  but  it  has  been  brought  about  uncompre- 
hendingly  to  them,  for  over  1,750,000  citizens  are  in  either  the  Armed  Forces 
shooting  part  of  this  phenomenal  production  away  or  in  industries  producing 
the  shooting  war  essentials.  They  also  realize  that  the  peak  of  man-hours 
in  industry  was  reached  in  1919,  but  cannot  appreciate  the  significance  of  the 
continued  rise  in  physical  production  since  that  date. 

Admittedly,  'a  little  difficulty'  may  occur  in  placing  1,750,000  persons  in 
civilian  industry  after  the  war  but  business  cannot  be  expected  to  help  much 
in  absorbing  them  for  the  worthy  reason  that  they  'cost'  too  much.  Business 
has  gotten  along  without  them  so  well  during  this  war  and  still  doubled  the 
country's  production  that  it  shudders  at  employing  men  at  50c  an  hour.  At 
this  price  ten  hours  of  work  would  cost  $5.00  whereas  one  kilowatt  hour  would 
do  the  same  work  for  a  cent,  and  no  business  could  sanely  compete  in  open 
markets  with  such  labor  costs  merely  to  absorb   some  of  the  unemployed. 

But  to  survive  business  will  be  forced  to  compete  in  the  open  market  under 
prewar  'business  as  usual'  rules  of  the  game.  And  to  survive  in  face  of  com- 
petition it  will  be  forced  to  install  more  and  better  machinery;  it  will  be  com- 
pelled to  enter  into  trade  agreements  to  prevent  price  wars — the  death-knell 
of  business;  and  it  will  be  constrained  by  the  very  system  under  which  it  hopes 
to  exist  to  support  the  operation  of  monopolies.  Cartels  will  be  in  the  fore- 
front of  business  activity.      Goodbye,  free  enterprise! 

By  their  very  construction  cartels  are  fascist  in  intent  and  operation  and  yet 
fascism  is  that  method  of  monopolistic  social  control  that  we  are  asked  to 
fight  today. 

Is  business  therefore  about  to  be  laid  over  the  barrel?  It  would  appear  so, 
for  to  survive  it  will  institute  a  fascist  cartelization  of  North  America. 

Once  again  for  the  record  Technocracy  squarely  points  out  that  business 
cannot  survive  in  North  America  without  losing  the  peace  to  fascism.  There 
is  no  choice.  Either  it  operates  and  impels  cartelization  and  thereby  freezes 
all  social  change  on  this  Continent,  or  it  faces  the  future  with  the  welfare  of 
all  citizens  of  this  Continent  at  heart,  and  supports  the  installation  of  the 
blueprint  of  abundance  prepared  and  presented  to  all  North  American  citizens 
by  Technocracy. 

Is  business  so  concerned  with  its  own  survival  at  the  expense  of  every  other 
North  American  that  it  refuses  to  accept  this  challenge? 

Business  alone  can  answer — 

— and  Technocracy  will  hear! 


50 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


■MNmH  9F£a 


TECHNOCRACY 


gm 


WHAT? 

Technocracy  is  science  in  the  social 
field.  Encyclopedia  Americana  says: 
'Whatever  the  future  of  Technocracy, 
one  must  fairly  say  that  it  is  the 
only  program  of  social  and  economic 
reconstruction  which  is  in  complete 
intellectual  and  technical  accord  with 
the  age  in  which  we  live.' 

WHEN? 

Technocracy  originated  in  the  winter 
of  1918-1919  when  Howard  Scott 
formed  a  group  of  scientists,  engin- 
eers, and  economists  that  became 
known  in  1920  as  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance— a  research  organization.  Some 
of  the  better  known  names  in  the 
Technical  Alliance  are  of  interest, 
such  as:  Frederick  L.  Ackerman,  ar- 
chitect; L.  K.  Comstock,  electrical 
engineer;  Stuart  Chase,  C.P.A.  (now 
well-known  writer);  Bassett  Jones, 
electrical  engineer;  Leland  Olds, 
statistician  (now  Federal  Power 
Commissioner);  Benton  Mackaye 
(now  in  the  Forestry  Department); 
Charles  P.  Steinmetz  and  Thorstein 
Veblen  (both  now  dead).  Howard 
Scott  was  Chief  Engineer.  In  1930 
the  group  was  first  known  as  Tech- 
nocracy. In  1933  it  was  incorporated 
under  the  laws  of  the  state  of  New 
York  as  a  non-profit,  non-political, 
non-sectarian  membership  organiza- 
tion. In  1934  Howard  Scott,  Direct- 
or-in-Chief,  made  his  first  Continent- 
al lecture  tour  which  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  present  Continental 
membership  organization.  Since  1934 
Technocracy  has  grown  steadily  with- 
out any  spectacular  spurts,  revivals, 
collapses,  or  rebirths.  This  is  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  press  has 
generally  'held  the  lid'  on  Technoc- 
racy, until  early  in  1942  when  it 
made  the  tremendous  'discovery'  that 
Technocracy  had  been  reborn  sudden- 
ly, full-fledged  with  all  its  members, 
headquarters,   etc.,    in    full    swing! 


WHY? 

Technocracy's  survey  of  the  econo- 
mic situation  in  North  America  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  de- 
velopment a  process  of  progressive 
social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instability 
reaches  the  limits  of  social  tolerance 
and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be 
installed  on  this  Continent  a  social 
mechanism  competent  to  meet  the 
needs  of  its  people.  Technocracy 
finds  further  that  the  day  when 
social  operations  on  this  Continent 
can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now 
necessary  that  there  be  applied  in 
the  social  field  the  quantitative 
methods  of  physical  science.  Tech- 
nocracy, therefore,  proposes  that  the 
North  American  Continent  be  operat- 
ed as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This 
control  would  operate  the  area  under 
a  balanced-load  system  of  production 
and  distribution,  whereunder  there 
would  be  distributed  purchasing 
power  commensurate  with  the  re- 
sources and  the  continuous  full-load 
operation  of  the  physical  equipment, 
with  the  guarantee  of  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living,  equality  of  income,  and 
economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of 
working  hours,  to  every  adult  in- 
habitant. 

HOW? 

At  this  stage  the  objectives  of  Tech- 
nocracy are  first,  the  education  of 
the  people  of  North  America  to  a 
realization  of  the  conditions  behind 
the  social  crisis,  and  second,  the  or- 
ganization of  all  those  willing  to  in- 
vestigate and  interest  themselves  in- 
to an  informed,  disciplined,  and  func- 
tionally capable  body  whose  know- 
ledge and  ability  can  be  called  upon 
to  prevent  chaos  in  North'  America 
at  that  time,  now  imminent,  when 
the  Price  System  can  no  longer  be 
made  to  operate.     . 


■Prosed 


9 


Idiot's  Delight! 


AMID  the  Hollywood  glamourizing  of  this  Price  System  of  ours  and  the 
too,  too  wonderful  results  of  free  enterprise  in  winning  everything  from 
the  soap  derby  to  the  war,  one  great  irony  hits  us  in  the  face  in  the  midst 
of  our  lush  prosperity.  Only  during  a  total  world  war  has  the  Price  System 
of  United  States  and  Canada  with  all  its  slobbering  inefficiencies  approached 
full  employment  and  prosperous  living  conditions.  This  startling  fact  must  be 
apparent  to  every  North  American  today  that  only  under  a  world  war  can  our 
Government  spend  hundreds  of  billions  of  dollars,  and  only  if  our  Government 
can  continue  to  spend  hundreds  of  billions  of  dollars  can  we  as  a  nation  con- 
tinue to  purchase  apparent  full  employment  and  apparent  prosperity.  Only 
during  a  world  war  has  the  Price  System  of  this  North  America  been  able  to 
offer  the  glittering  bribery  to  almost  every  segment  of  the  national  structure, 
a  bribery  so  attractive  that  it  seduces  all  citizens  into  the  rapturous  acceptance 
of  more  of  the  same,  of  more  wages  for  the  worker,  greater  salaries  for  the 
employed,  higher  prices  to  the  farmer,  more  customers  for  the  business  man, 
greater  profits  for  corporate  enterprise,  and  more  and  better  rackets  to  create 
more  delinquents. 

One  tragic  disaster  that  could  befall  United  States  and  Canada  at  this  time, 
a  disaster  thought  by  some  to  be  more  terrible  than  war,  would  be  simultaneous 
collapse  of  both  Germany  and  Japan  for  United  States  and  Canada  are  less 
prepared  for  peace  than  they  were  for  war.  It  therefore  follows  that  if  a 
world  war  could  be  continuous  and  perpetual,  full  employment,  prosperity,  and 
all  the  glamour  claims  of  free  enterprise  would  be  continuous  and  perpetual; 
but  there  is  a  fundamental  fault  that  prevents  this  because  the  controllers  of 
our  Price  System  have  always  hitherto  declared  war  on  nations  and  their  mili- 
tary forces.  The  great  error  in  such  a  war  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  armies  of 
the  enemy  surrender  and  that  the  enemy  nations  capitulate  and  make  peace. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Price  System  of  this  Continent  can  declare  war  on  the 
largest  single  area  of  the  globe  whose  soldiers  will  never  die  in  battle,  whose 
armies  will  never  surrender,  and  whose  government  will  not  capitulate,  the 
Price  System  will  have  finally  found  the  ideal  war  by  which  it  can  perpetuate 
this  paradise  of  morons.  Therefore,  Technocracy  proposes  that  the  only  hope 
that  this  Price  System  has  of  continuing  this  war  prosperity  is  for  Canada  and 
the  United  States  to  declare  war  on  the  63,985,000  square  miles  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean. 

— CHQ,  TECHNOCRACY  INC. 

(Section  Stamp) 


■ 


NOV. 


PUBLISHED  IN  CANADA  BY  SEC.  1   •  R.  D.  12349 

TECHNOCRACY    INC. 


25c 


TECHNDCRRCV 

DICE5T 


THE  ONLY  MAGAZINE  IN  CANADA  THAT  IS  PREPARING  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THIS 
COUNTRY  FOR  SOCIAL  CHANGE 


NOVEMBER,  1944 


VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 


No.  77 


—STAFF— 

Editor Donald  Bruce  Business  Manager       H.  W.  Carpenter 

Assistant  Editor  W.  D.  Ellwyn  Circulation  Manager G.  H.  Connor 

Assistant  Editor  ..  .Dorothy  Fearman  Research  V.  A.  Knudsen 

Assistant  Editor  ....  H.  W.  Carpenter  Production  O.  G.  Lunde 

Free  Enterprise,   Cartels  and  Fascism 3 

How  Cartels  Sabotage  Technology       4 

Rubber  From  a  Canadian  Weed 18 

Power  for  a  Continent 21 

Steep  Rock  Iron  Ore  Development 30 

Home  Nest  of  the  Furies 32 

No  Shrink,  No  Shine,  No  Slip 41 

Technology  and  Free  Enterprise 44 

'The  Rest  of  Your  Life'       46 

An  Open  Letter  to  Labor 50 


Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349,  Techno- 
cracy Inc.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies  25  cents.  Twelve  issues  for  $2.50; 
six  issues  for  $1.25.  Bundle  rates  10  to  100,  20  cents  per  copy;  100  copies  or 
more,  19  cents  each.  Continental  Headquarters  of  Technocracy  Inc.  is  at  155 
E.  44th  St.,  New  York  17,  N.  Y.  Send  all  correspondence  and  manuscripts  and 
make  all  money  orders  payable  to  Technocracy  Digest,  625  West  Pender  St., 
Vancouver,  B.  C.  Entered  as  second  class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  Department, 
Ottawa.     Printed  in  Canada. 


FRONT  COVER 

At  the  bottom  of  Steep  Rock  Lake  (see  page  30)  lie  rich  ore  deposits  which 
cannot  be  reached  economically  by  shaft.  In  order  to  create  an  openface  mine 
the  lake  had  to  be  drained  from  Marmion  Lake  through  Raft  Lake  and  Finlay- 
son  Lake  into  a  new  river  bed.  The  rock  wall,  the  plug  which  held  back  Lake 
Marmion  from  pouring  through  Raft  Lake  into  dried-out  Lake  Finlayson  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  development,  is  shown  here.  Pitt  Construction  Company 
men  are  wiring  the  charges.  (National  Film  Board  Photo) 


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Free  Enterprise,  Cartels  and  Fascism 


THE  current  campaign  that  is 
being  waged  in  defense  of 
of  'free  enterprise'  is  one  of  the 
greatest  hoaxes  in  all  history. 

In  the  first  place,  we  haven't 
got  'free  enterprise,'  nor  have  we 
had  it  for  many  years.  As  tech- 
nology has  advanced,  'free  enter- 
prise' has  receded  like  snow  be- 
fore a  rotary  plow.  The  Great 
Depression  gave  'free  enterprise' 
a  swift  kick  in  the  pants  and 
Total  War  landed  a  deadly  blow 
in  its  solar  plexus.  If  it  hadn't 
been  for  government  spending  in 
Canada  and  the  United  States  we 
would  have  had  economic  chaos. 

Again,  the  most  blatant  'free 
enterprise'  propagandists  them- 
selves have  indulged  strenuously 
in  activities  that  have  made  a 
sickly  memory  of  the  way  of  life 
they  are  supposed  to  be  advocat- 
ing. These  happy  hypocrites 
have  been  concocting  monopolis- 
tic arrangements  and  cartel  ag- 
reements all  the  time  they  have 
been  drooling  nostalgically  about 
a  luscious  world  of  'individual 
opportunities  for  every  American 
and  Canadian.'  And  even  more 
sinisterly,  they  have  been  at- 
tempting to  install  a  fascist  sys- 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


tern  in  North  America  while 
camouflaging  their  operations  be- 
hind a  smoke-screen  of  slander 
against  those  who  have  recog- 
nized the  face  of  fascism  on  this 
Continent. 

Technocracy  states  that  fascism 
and  cartelization  are  one  and  the 
same  thing — the  consolidation  of 
all  the  minor  rackets  into  a  major 
monopoly  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Price  System.  If  this  is  what 
Big  Business  advocates,  its  'free 
enterprise'  crusade  is  also  sus- 
pect. And  then  the  statement  in 
its  full  page  advertisements 
which  says,  'Free  enterprise  is  a 
lot  of  little  things,  and  some 
mighty  big  things,  too,'  ironically 
becomes  correct.  As  little  as  a 
child  digging  in  a  garbage  can  for 
food,  and  as  big  as  an  interna- 
tional cartel! 

Who  in  hell  wants  what  'free 
enterprise'  stands  for,  anyway? 
'Free  enterprise'  only  means  free- 
dom to  chisel,  freedom  to  profit, 
freedom  to  have  enforced  scarci- 
ty, freedom  to  operate  for  pri- 
vate benefit  against  the  public 
welfare,  freedom  to  have  crime, 
waste,  poverty,  malnutrition,  and 
disease.  — The  Editor 


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How  Cartels  Sabotage  Technology 

For  years  Technocracy  has  been  spot-lighting  the  conflict  be- 
tween technology  and  business,  between  production  and  profit, 
between  plenty  and  price.  The  following  documentary  material, 
published  by  the  U.  S.  Government,  is  further  evidence  of  the 
sabotage  of  technological  advancement  by  cartel  agreements. 
Remember  that  the  cartel  structure  exactly  fits  Technocracy's 
definition  of  fascism — the  consolidation  of  all  the  minor  rackets 
into  a  major  monopoly  for  the  preservation  of  the  Price  System. 

1.     Restriction  of  Supply 


RESTRICTIONS  of  the  avail- 
able supply  are  prominent 
among  the  methods  by  which  car- 
tels undertake  to  maintain  prices. 
In  some  cases  cartel  restric- 
tions take  the  form  of  absolute 
limits  upon  the  amount  which 
may  be  produced,  sold  or  export- 
ed. This  form  of  restriction  ob- 
viously subordinates  the  con- 
sumers' demand  for  additional 
quantities  to  the  industry's  desire 
for  additional  profits.  Cartels 
which  are  formed  to  meet  the 
so-called  overproduction  created 
by  a  declining  market  or  by  the 
appearance  of  new  capacity  are 
peculiarly  likely  to  undertake  di- 
rect limitation  of  supply. 

The  tin  cartel  formed  in  1931 
was  a  conspicuous  example, 
though  it  was  peculiar  in  that  it 


This  material  has  been  reprinted 
from  Senate  Committee  Print,  Mono- 
graph No.  1,  78th  Congress,  2nd  Ses- 
sion, on  'Economic  and  Political  As- 
pects of  International  Cartels.' 


was  organized  by  an  internation- 
al governmental  convention.  An 
unsuccessful  attempt  in  1929  to 
curtail  the  production  of  tin  by 
purely  private  means  was  the  ori- 
gin of  this  quasi-public  venture. 
A  private  association  of  tin  pro- 
ducers, which  at  first  controlled 
21  percent  of  the  annual  output 
and  subsequently  attained  con- 
trol of  between  50  and  75  per- 
cent, failed  to  restrict  output  be- 
cause of  differences  of  opinion 
as  to  policy  and  lack  of  sufficient 
authority.  The  governments  of 
British  Malaya,  Bolivia,  the 
Dutch  East  Indies,  and  Nigeria 
established  an  International  Tin 
Committee  in  1931  and  made  re- 
strictions of  output  compulsory 
by  law.  Standard  tonnages  for 
each  participating  country  have 
been  established  by  international 
convention.  At  stated  intervals 
the  Committee  applies  a  percent- 
age figure  to  these  tonnages  and 
thus    arrives   at   national    export 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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quotas  which  are  translated  by 
each  country  into  production 
quotas  for  its  own  producers.  To 
cope  with  the  large  stocks  of  tin 
which  had  been  accumulated  be- 
fore this  plan  went  into  effect, 
an  international  tin  pool  was 
formed  in  1931  to  dispose  of  these 
stocks  gradually  in  accord  with 
prices  and  policies  agreed  upon 
by  the  signatory  governments. 
Subsequently  provision  was 
made  for  a  permanent  buffer 
pool.  The  effect  of  the  restric- 
tion upon  output  appears  in  the 
fact  that  in  the  3  years  after  the 
cartel  arrangement,  from  1932 
through  1934,  world  production 
averaged  102,000  long  tons  per 
year,  only  56  percent  of  the  182,- 
000  long  tons  per  year  produced 
between  1928  and  1930,  inclusive. 
From  1935  through  1939  produc- 
tion was  still  restricted  to  an 
average  of  171,000  long  tons  a 
year. 

The  effect  of  the  cartel's  re- 
strictions upon  the  price  of  tin  is 
apparent  in  reports  which  ap- 
peared in  the  Minerals  Yearbook 
of  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Mines.  The  1936  report  declared: 

"The  price  of  tin  during  1934  and 
1935,  though  very  high  compared 
with  that  of  other  commodities  and 
particularly  with  other  metals,  was 
much  steadier  than  it  had  been  in 
years.  This  stability  reflected  the 
manipulation  of  production  and 
stocks  by  the  International  Tin  Com- 
mittee.' 


The  1937  report  said  as  to 
prices  in  1936: 

'In  May  the  growing  deficiency  in 
the  quota  assigned  to  Bolivia  and  the 
dissatisfaction  of  Siam  led  to  appre- 
hensions regarding  the  renewal  of 
the  agreement  which  were  reflected 
by  the  price  situation  in  international 
markets  .  .  .  On  November  5  the  re- 
newal of  the  tin  agreement  was  an- 
nounced. Prices  rose  to  the  high 
point  of  the  year  on  November  9  but 
declined  slightly  immediately  there- 
after.' 

In  spite  of  the  capture  of  the 
Malayan  and  East  Indian  sources 
of  tin  by  the  Japanese,  the  Inter- 
national Tin  Committee  has  con- 
tinued in  existence  and  continues 
to  announce  theoretical  national 
quotas. 

The  international  steel  cartel 
has  also  relied  upon  restrictions 
of  output  and  of  exports.  In  the 
late  1920's  the  producers  of  Bel- 
gium, France,  Germany,  Luxem- 
burg, the  Saar  Valley,  Austria, 
Czechoslovakia,  and  Hungary  ad- 
hered to  a  basic  production  quota 
which  was  calculated  from  the 
output  of  the  first  quarter  of 
1926.  Total  permissible  tonnage 
was  fixed  quarterly  by  a  manage- 
ment committee  and  was  distri- 
buted among  the  participants  ac- 
cording to  agreed  percentages. 
A  fund  was  established  from 
which  compensation  was  to  be 
paid  to  national  groups  which  did 
not  produce  their  full  quota  and 
fines  were  assessed  upon  groups 
which     exceeded     their     quotas. 


NOVEMBER,  1944 


Subsequently  during  the  1930's, 
a  new  agreement  as  to  exports 
was  developed  among  producers 
in  Belgium,  Germany,  Saar, 
France,  and  Luxemburg.  Under 
this  plan  a  management  commit- 
tee made  quarterly  determina- 
tions of  the  amount  of  steel  to  be 
exported  and  divided  the  totals 
among  national  groups  according 
to  percentages  based  upon  their 
past  exports.  Like  the  previous 
plan,  the  export  controls  were 
accompanied  by  fines  and  indem- 
nities for  those  who  exceeded  or 
fell  below  their  quotas.  The  pro- 
gram was  supplemented  by  spe- 
cial sales  agreements  under 
which  export  quotas  were  fixed 
for  particular  groups  of  products. 
In  a  number  of  cases  price  con- 
trol was  also  undertaken.  Pro- 
ducers  in   central  Europe,   Swit- 


zerland, Norway,  Finland,  and 
Holland  subsequently  adhered  to 
the  plan  and  the  entire  contin- 
ental group  entered  into  an  ag- 
reement with  British  producers 
to  restrict  their  exports  to  Great 
Britain  and  to  allocate  export 
tonnages  to  other  markets. 

In  the  negotiations  incident  to 
the  reestablishment  of  the  nitro- 
gen cartel,  a  representative  of  du 
Pont  had  difficulty  with  a  Dutch 
producer  who  disliked  the  idea 
of  limiting  production: 

'As  you  will  have  seen  from  my 
cable,  he  is  very  stiff-necked  about 
his  position.  He  claims  very  low 
costs  and  is  determined  to  export 
that  portion  of  his  production  (which 
to  him  apparently  means  capacity) 
which  he  cannot  sell  in  Holland  .... 
I'm  afraid  you  and  your  friends  are 
going  to  find  him  a  difficult  prob- 
lem. I  used  all  the  arguments  you 
gave  me  and  a  few  I  thought  up  my- 
self, but  he  is  simply  determined  to 
sell  his  output.' 


2.     Restriction  of  Capacity  to  Produce 


CLOSELY  related  to  limita- 
tation  of  supply  is  restrictior 
of  new  industrial  capacity.  Such 
restrictions  are  often  undertaken 
when  existing  capacity  is  partly 
idle  and  there  is  a  likelihood  that 
new  capacity  will  mean  either 
larger  production  and  declining 
prices  or  a  further  reduction  in 
the  output  of  established  plants. 


Sometimes  efforts  are  made  to 
delay  the  construction  of  effi- 
cient plants  to  replace  obsoles- 
cent ones.  Sometimes  restriction 
is  intended  to  retard  the  develop- 
ment of  a  substitute  product 
which  might  permanently  reduce 
the  market  for  an  older  product. 
Sometimes  the  primary  concern 
is    to    keep    out   of    the    industry 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


m        M 

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enterprises  which  might  be  un- 
willing to  collaborate  in  cartel 
policies.  Often  a  restriction  is 
intended  to  deal  with  two  or 
more  of  these  problems  at  once. 

In  the  nitrogen  industry,  Euro- 
pean producers  of  synthetic  ni- 
trogen have  resisted  the  con- 
struction of  new  plants  in  the 
United  States  for  fear  of  so-called 
overproduction,  while  Chilean 
producers  of  natural  nitrates 
have  resisted  the  substitution  of 
the  synthetic  for  the  natural  pro- 
duct. Expanded  synthetic  nitro- 
gen production  during  the  First 
World  War  led  to  the  formation 
of  a  European  cartel  to  pool  and 
divide  sales.  An  agreement  be- 
tween this  European  cartel  and 
the  organized  Chilean  producers 
of  natural  nitrates  fixed  sales 
quotas  in  the  markets  of  the 
world.  The  European  cartel  was 
dominated  by  the  so-called  D.E. 
N.  group  of  German,  English,  and 
Norwegian  producers,  and  this 
group  in  turn  was  dominated  by 
I.  G.  Farbenindustrie.  I.  G.  Far- 
ben  attempted  to  prevent  the  de- 
velopment of  productive  capaci- 
ty for  synthetic  ammonia  in  the 
United  States  by  the  Hercules 
Powder  Co.  and  the  Atlas  Pow- 
der Co.  In  1933,  Hercules  at- 
tempted to  obtain  a  license  from 
I.  G.  in  order  to  construct  an  am- 
monia plant.  I.  G.  refused  and 
later  explained  that: 


'  .  .  .  because  of  our  other  nitrogen 
interests  we  were  not  in  a  position 
to  permit  your  firm  to  use  our  pro- 
cess and  experience  for  the  produc- 
tion of  hydrogen  and  ammonia  syn- 
thesis.' 

Three  years  later,  in  April 
1936,  a  similar  request  again  re- 
ceived a  negative  answer  from 
I.G.: 

'We  have  again  reached  the  conclu- 
sion that,  because  of  our  other  in- 
terests in  the  nitrogen  field,  we  are 
not  in  a  position  to  put  at  your  dis- 
posal the  experience  you  desire.' 

In  December  1939,  after  the 
outbreak  of  war  in  Europe,  the 
Atlas  Powder  Co.  proposed  to 
build  a  plant  for  the  production 
of  synthetic  nitrogen.  I.  G.'s 
American  agency,  Chemnyco,  re- 
ported to  I.  G.: 

'The  project  of  Atlas  Powder  Com- 
pany is  analogous  to  the  project  of 
Hercules.  It  will  be  carried  out  ir- 
respective of  whether  or  not  you  will 
give  Atlas  a  license  and  technical  ad- 
vice. We  do  not  know  whether  under 
these  circumstances  you  would  still 
refuse  to  promote  in  any  way  the 
building  of  basic  nitrogen  plants  in 
the  United  States.' 

Faced  with  this  situation,  I.  G. 
resumed  negotiations  with  the 
Atlas  Co.  about  granting  a  li- 
cense, but  apparently  only  in  a 
final  attempt  to  delay  Atlas'  con- 
struction of  a  plant.  The  nego- 
tiations were  broken  off  abruptly 
in  the  middle  of  1940,  at  which 
time  the  American  agent  of  I.  G. 
wrote  to  Atlas: 


ffl8£m$& 


iw\l 


NOVEMBER,  1944 


«s 


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■  I 

■■■■KHHOC 


'I.  G.,  for  the  time  being,  are  not 
in  a  position  to  grant  a  license.  To 
their  regret  they  are  also  not  able 
to  indicate  at  what  future  time  nego- 
tiations on  this  matter  might  possibly 
be  resumed.' 

The  fear  of  synthetic  nitrogen 
by  the  Chilean  producers  has 
been  conspicuous  during  recent 
months.  There  are  evidences  of 
concern  lest  synthetic  nitrate 
plants  be  constructed  abroad  by 
American  capital  after  the  war. 
According  to  press  reports,  steps 
have  already  been  taken  to  fore- 
stall the  development  of  a  mar- 
ket for  the  synthetic  product  in 
nearby  Argentina.  In  April  1943 
an  agreement  was  concluded  be- 
tween the  Government  of  Chile 
and  the  Argentine  Government 
providing  that  in  return  for  stor- 
age of  10,000  metric  tons  of  Chil- 
ean saltpeter  in  Argentina  and 
delivery  of  a  small  quantity  of 
iodine,  the  Argentine  Govern- 
ment would  undertake  to  buy 
only  natural  saltpeter  for  indus- 
trial and  agricultural  consump- 
tion and  to  abstain  for  10  years 
from  erecting  a  synthetic  nitric 
acid  plant  unless  forced  to  do  so 
by  considerations  of  national  de- 
fense. The  Argentine  Govern- 
ment also  undertook  to  allow  im- 
ports of  synthetic  nitrates  only 
'for  well-founded  and  justifiable 
uses.' 

The  effort  to  prevent  the  de- 
velopment of  production  by  new 
concerns  is  illustrated  in  a  patent 


agreement  between  International 
General  Electric  Co.  and  Allge- 
meine  Elektricitaets-Gesellschaft, 
relating  to  electrical  apparatus: 

'(4)  When  an  invention  relating 
to  such  fields  is  offered  to  either 
party  with  due  notice  from  the  other 
party  that  such  invention  is  of  par- 
ticular value  to  the  party  offering 
the  same,  the  party  to  whom  it  is 
offered  agrees  to  use  its  best  en- 
deavors to  obtain  such  patent  or  pat- 
ents in  all  countries  of  its  exclusive 
territory,  so  that,  as  far  as  the  pat- 
enting of  such  inventions  is  concern- 
ed, third  parties  may  be  restrained 
from  manufacturing  within  its  ex- 
clusive territory  for  export  into  the 
nonexclusive  territory.  .  .  .  ' 

The  desire  of  a  dominant  com- 
pany to  limit  expansion  to  con- 
cerns which  can  be  trusted  to  ob- 
serve cartel  agreements  is  illus- 
trated by  the  following  quotation 
from  the  files  of  the  New  Jersey 
Zinc   Co.: 

'We  wish  to  help  stabilize  the  zinc 
industry  and  not  to  add  to  the  de- 
moralization already  by  indiscrimin- 
ate licensing  of  our  own  process. 
Our  policy  in  this  country,  therefore, 
is  to  license  only  approved  companies 
who  are  willing  not  only  to  explain 
their  plans  and  disclose  their  stand- 
ing in  the  industry  to  us  but  who, 
we  feel  sure,  will  handle  the  licenses 
to  the  best  advantage  of  the  zinc  in- 
dustry as  a  whole.  Also  we  license  the 
production  only  of  metal  of  a  quality 
not  better  than  Brass  Special  and  of 
limited  tonnage  .  .  .  .  ' 

Productive  capacity  in  the 
American  magnesium  industry 
was  restricted  before  the  present 
war  by  a  cartel  arrangement  in 
which  each  participant  accomp- 
lished a  different  purpose.  The 
Aluminum   Co.   of  America   pre- 


8 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


ESxXX 


"-•''-■■ 


IBM 


■  ■   n 


■ 


■ 


vented  the  development  of  mag- 
nesium as  an  important  substi- 
tute for  aluminum.  Dow  Chemi- 
cal Co.  avoided  the  construction 
of  competing  plants  which  might 
have  jeopardized  Dow's  high 
prices.  I.  G.  Farbenindustrie 
avoided  the  risk  of  American  ex- 
ports to  Europe.  In  1927  Dow 
Chemical  Co.,  made  an  agree- 
ment with  the  Aluminum  Co.  of 
America  by  which  the  Aluminum 
Co.'s  subsidiary,  American  Mag- 
nesium Corporation,  ceased  to 
produce,  purchasing  all  its  re- 
quirements from  Dow.  Subse- 
quently, to  prevent  I.  G.  Farben 
from  establishing  magnesium 
plants  in  the  United  States,  the 
Aluminum  Co.  made  an  agree- 
ment with  I.  G.  Farben  in  1931 
by  which  the  magnesium  patents 
of  the  two  companies  were  pool- 
ed in  Magnesium  Development 
Corporation.  The  agreement 
provided  that  in  no  event  could 
the  United  States  production  ex- 
ceed 4,000  tons  yearly  without 
the  consent  of  I.  G.  Farben.  Two 
years  later,  after  a  patent  in- 
fringement suit  had  been  insti- 
tuted against  Dow  by  M.  D.  C, 
Dow  agreed  to  supply  the  re<- 
quirements  of  American  Mag- 
nesium Corporation  at  less  than 
market  prices,  and  in  return  for 
this  undertaking  the  patent  pool 
abandoned  plans  to  construct  a 
magnesium  plant.     The  effect  of 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


the  series  of  contracts  was  to 
close  the  existing  plant  which 
had  been  competing  with  Dow 
and  to  prevent  the  development 
of  new  capacity  operating  under 
the  I.  G.  Farben  patents.  More- 
over, Dow  undertook  not  to  ex- 
port to  Europe  except  a  specified 
quantity  to  a  designated  licensee. 

Similar  restrictions  were  de- 
veloped in  the  fabrication  of 
magnesium  in  the  United  States 
by  an  arrangement  under  which 
the  same  cartel  members  cross- 
licensed  each  other  but  inter- 
posed obstacles  to  fabrication  by 
others.  American  Magnesium 
Corporation  issued  no  sub-li- 
censes. Dow  refused  many  appli- 
cants and  limited  the  activities 
of  such  fabricators  as  it  tolerated. 
For  example,  it  required  its  li- 
censees to  buy  their  magnesium 
from  it  exclusively,  restricted 
each  sublicensee  to  a  particular 
type  of  foundry  operation,  pro- 
hibited sublicensees  from  solicit- 
ing certain  designated  customers, 
and  in  effect  excluded  certain 
sublicensees  from  particular  sales 
areas. 

In  consequence,  the  production 
and  use  of  magnesium  in  this 
country  lagged  far  behind  the 
development  in  Germany  and 
there  was  a  serious  shortage  of 
experience  and  equipment  for 
fabricating  magnesium  %  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  present  war. 


'  ■ ' .  -  ' 


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3.     Restrictions  Upon  Invention  and  Technological  Change 

tel  members  was  thus  expressed 
in  1927  by  Sir  Alfred  Mond,  or- 
ganizer of  Imperial  Chemical  In- 
dustries: 


DESIRING  to  limit  expansion 
of  output  and  avoid  the  de- 
velopment of  uncontrolled  sub- 
stitute processes,  cartels  are  ne- 
cessarily suspicious  of  new  tech- 
nological developments.  They 
readily  undertake  research  to 
discover  new  uses  for  their  old 
products  but  often  discourage 
the  development  of  new  pro- 
cesses or  new  products.  How- 
ever, since  one  of  the  most  pre- 
valent forms  of  cartel  arrange- 
ment is  that  which  depends  up- 
on local  patent  monopolies  and 
interchange  of  patent  licenses, 
cartel  members  are  interested  in 
promoting  the  inventive  process 
at  least  to  the  extent  necessary 
to  maintain  and  extend  their 
patent  position.  Patents  are 
weapons  against  outsiders;  and 
the  concern  with  the  most  and 
the  best  patents,  other  things  be- 
ing equal,  has  the  greatest  bar- 
gaining power  in  the  cartel. 
There  is  rivalry  in  obtaining  pa- 
tents and  hence  rivalry  in  inven- 
tion. The  result  is  a  peculiar 
mixture  of  emphasis  upon  inven- 
tion, joint  use  of  new  processes, 
and  efforts  to  prevent  the  appli- 
cation of  these  processes  in  ways 
which  might  impair  prices  or 
profits. 

The  point  of  view  of  many  car- 


lo 


'As  there  is  no  monopoly  in  inven- 
tions, nobody  can  say  whence  the 
next  great  idea  will  come — whether 
from  Britain,  America,  Japan,  Italy, 
France,  or  elsewhere.  This  fact  im- 
plies that  at  any  moment  it  might 
be  within  the  power  of  any  one 
country  to  project  a  new  idea  which 
would  at  once  disconcert  the  whole 
world  balance  of  industry.  This  in- 
stance gives  rise  to  the  natural  de- 
sire in  the  interests  not  only  of  the 
leaders  of  industry  themselves,  but 
of  the  world  at  large,  to  cooperate 
with  all  those  working  on  similar 
ideas,  so  as  to  pool  the  results  of 
invention  and  research  and  to  bring 
to  bear,  as  speedily  as  possible,  and 
in  every  civilized  country,  the  eco- 
nomic rate  of  production.  .  .  . 

'A  fact  which  is  not  yet  clearly 
understood  is  that  the  practice  of 
regarding  trade  processes  as  a  jeal- 
ous secret  is  out  of  date.  Modern 
methods  require  an  exchange  of  in- 
formation and  the  fruits  of  research 
between  all  engaged  in  the  same  in- 
dustry.' 

In  the  desire  to  improve  their 
patent  position,  large  internation- 
al concerns  which,  acting  togeth- 
er, can  enjoy  a  monopoly  of 
power  based  upon  patents,  usual- 
ly spend  substantial  sums  upon 
research.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  the  systematic  conduct  of  ex- 
periments within  a  field  of  re- 
search which  has  already  been 
laid  out  is  expedited  by  such  ex- 
penditures. There  is  dispute  as 
to  whether     the     routinized     re- 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


■ 


search  of  these  large  companies 
is  equally  successful  in  producing 
the  basic  inventions  which  open 
new  fields  of  enquiry.  More- 
over, it  is  obvious  that  many  of 
the  inventions  which  take  place 
in  patent-controlled  industries 
are  not  intended  for  industrial 
use,  but  are  for  the  purpose  of 
fencing-in  an  industrial  field; 
that  is,  patenting  the  process  in 
order  to  prevent  others  from 
making  use  of  the  invention.  For 
example,  a  communication  from 
a  du  Pont  executive  to  Imperial 
Chemical  Industries  in  1927  de- 
clares: 

'The  second  of  our  dielectric  cases 
covers  the  use  of  chlorisopropyl  ben- 
zines as  dielectrics.  In  the  course  of 
our  work  it  was  found  that  these 
materials  were  of  sufficient  value  to 
be  a  distinct  competitive  threat,  pro- 
vided the  raw  materials  should  be- 
come available  at  sufficiently  low 
cost.  The  application  was  filed  as  an 
insurance  application  to  secure  what 
protection  might  be  available  but 
without  expectation  of  future  com- 
mercial use.' 

In  industries  in  which  patents 
are  used  as  the  basis  of  industrial 
power,  exchange  of  patents  a- 
mong  the  parties  to  a  cartel  ag- 
reement broadens  the  field  of  use 
of  particular  inventions  and 
makes  a  larger  portion  of  the 
field  of  technology  available  to 
each  participating  concern.  In 
some  cases  in  which  companies 
are  bound  together  by  perman- 
ent agreement  to  exchange  pat- 
ents  and   processes,    there    is    an 


interchange  of  the  details  of  op- 
rating  experience,  described  as 
'Know-how.'  If  such  candid  ex- 
changes were  general,  the  situa- 
tion within  the  cartel  would  ap- 
proach that  which  would  prevail 
in  the  economy  generally  if  all 
new  inventions  were  dedicated 
to  the  public  use.  Indeed,  it 
would  involve  even  less  conceal- 
ment of  trade  secrets.  But  in 
practice  the  technical  advantages 
of  pooled  information  are  subor- 
dinated to  commercial  considera- 
tions, and  exchanges  of  informa- 
tion are  often  strictly  limited. 
Sir  Alfred  Mond  wrote  in  1927: 

'The  cartel  or  combination  which 
exists  only  for  a  limited  number  of 
years  is  in  reality  nothing  more  than 
an  armistice  in  industrial  warfare, 
and  people  are  not  going  to  hand 
over  arms  and  methods  of  warfare 
to  those  who  in  a  few  years  may  be 
fighting  them  again.  Therefore,  you 
do  not  get  a  complete  and  full  ex- 
change of  information,  of  patents, 
inventions,  and  new  processes.  Such 
an  exchange  is  of  fundamental  im- 
portance to  progress,  not  merely  in 
particular  concerns  but  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  industry  as  a  whole 
....  The  way  in  which  that  can 
best  be  done  is  by  complete  fusion.' 

The  exchange  of  information 
among  parties  to  the  cartel  agree- 
ment is  dependent  upon  the 
working  out  of  methods  to  pre- 
vent them  from  competing.  An 
executive  of  the  du  Pont  Co.  ex- 
pressed this  point  in  1929: 

'This  Department  considered  at  the 
time  and  still  does  consider  that  any 
arrangements  providing  for  the  ex- 
change   of   technical     information     is 


NOVEMBER,  1944 


11 


■flKflNfSB£5nB 


unwise  unless  accompanied  by  terri- 
torial limitations.  This  point  is  well 
brought  out  and  a  further  good  test 
of  the  intent  of  the  supplemental  a- 
greement  is  given  if  Nobels  should  be 
asked  why  du  Pont  should  agree  to 
furnish  technical  information  to 
Nobels  to  enable  them  (Nobels)  to 
compete  against  du  Pont  in  France 
and  other  countries  outside  British 
territory.' 

In  discussions  in  1933  between 
du  Pont  and  I.  G.  Farben  as  to  a 
proposed  agreement  about  nitro- 
gen, a  similar  view  was  express- 
ed, but  with  emphasis  upon  the 
possibility  that  technical  coopera- 
tion might  lead  to  commercial 
cooperation: 

'Dr.  Muller  asked  if  it  was  not 
logically  necessary  to  have  a  com- 
mercial agreement  between  the  three 
firms  if  satisfactory  technical  co- 
operation were  to  be  obtained.  It 
might  be  difficult  for  one  company 
to  assist  another  to  improve  its  tech- 
nical position  when  the  two  com- 
panies were  competing  in  certain 
markets.  There  already  existed  a  sat- 
isfactory commercial  understanding 
between  I.  C.  I.  and  I.  G.  in  the  fer- 
tilizer Nitrogen  markets. 

'Mr.  Crane  held  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  delay  technical  cooperation 
until  a  commercial  arrangement  had 
been  arrived  at;  he  felt  that  satis- 
factory relations  on  the  commercial 
side  would  follow  automatically,  as  he 
thought  it  unlikely  that  the  com- 
panies would  compete  with  one 
another  commercially  in  a  senseless 
fashion,  while  cooperating  technical- 
ly. In  any  case  it  was  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  the  three  companies 
were  already  so  close  to  one  another 
in  technical  efficiency  that  a  free  ex- 
change of  experience  could  make  no 
difference  to  their  respective  com- 
petitive powers,  as  today  exchange 
rates,  tariff  restrictions,  and  wage 
levels  were  far  more  important  in 
determining  the  competitive  power 
of  a  given  country  in  export  markets. 


12 


If  an  invention  were  made  by  any 
party  which  would  revolutionize  the 
manufacture  of  any  particular  pro- 
duct, the  position  would  be  safe- 
guarded by  the  arrangement  that  a 
license  would  have  to  be  obtained.' 

In  some  cartels  a  dominant 
company  seeks  to  preserve  and 
strengthen  its  position  by  dis- 
couraging research  on  the  part 
of  other  companies.  This  appears 
to  be  the  policy  of  the  General 
Electric  Co.  towards  other  pro- 
ducers of  electric  lamps.  An  of- 
ficial of  Bartlett,  Eyre,  Scott,  and 
Keel  wrote  to  an  official  of  Tung- 
Sol  Lamp  Works  in  1935: 

'  .  .  .  A  lamp  licensee  has  no  in- 
ducement to  develop  new  inventions 
if  General  Electric  Company  can 
freely  take  whatever  they  develop.' 

In  a  memorandum  on  fluores- 
cent lighting  in  1938,  an  official 
of  Hygrade  Sylvania  Corporation 
declared: 

'  .  .  .  The  G.  E.'s  type  of  licensing 
deprives  us  of  the  incentive  to  ob- 
tain patents  of  our  own  on  lamp  man- 
ufacture, thereby  actually  weakening 
the  G.  E.  patent  structure  by  de- 
creasing the  number  of  patents  in 
the  G.  E.  license  group.' 

In  the  following  year  an  offi- 
cial of  Hygrade  reported  a  con- 
ference with  a  General  Electric 
official  as  follows: 

'The  writer  questioned  Mr.  Sloan 
regarding  his  thoughts  on  the  ad- 
visability of  concentrating  all 
the  research  effort  of  one  industry 
in  one  laboratory  because  of  the 
danger  that  the  laboratory  might  be- 
come ingrown  and  tend  to  move  only 
in  one  direction.  In  reply  to  this 
Mr.  Sloan  pointed  out  that  in  some 
cases  a  laboratory  might  be  a  detri- 
ment  because    as   far   as    the    lamp 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


&m 


J  ■      GUSH 

I      ■ 

■  BobS    ^Hfl 


*:i 


■  A 


IB 


kc- 


business  of  the  various   members   of 
the  lamp  industry  was  concerned,  the 
G.   E.   Company  made  a   higher  rate 
of  profit  than  anyone  else  .  .  .  .  ' 
Reporting    a    conference    with 

another  official  of  the  General 
Electric  in  the  same  year,  an- 
other representative  of  Hygrade 
wrote: 

'He  brought  out  how  well  pleased 
Westinghouse  and  Champion  were 
with  their  set-up  and  how  much  more 
profitable  it  was  for  them  to  cut 
down  their  development  activities.  I 
told  him  that  we  did  not  agree  with 
such  a  policy  and  did  not  feel  that  it 
was  for  the  good  of  any  industry  to 
try  to  have  all  developments  confined 
to  one  laboratory;  for  example, 
where  would  the  automobile  industry 
be  today  if  all  developments  were 
concentrated  in  one  of  the  big  com- 
panies? He  replied  that,  of  course, 
his  company  had  access  to  all  the  de- 
velopments  of  Europe.' 

In  appraising  the  effect  of  car- 
tels upon  technical  progress, 
gains  within  the  cartel  from  the 
pooling  of  patents  and  know- 
how  must  also  be  set  against  the 
substantial  obstacles  incurred  by 
concerns  which  are  not  parties. 
These  companies  find  themselves 
excluded  from  access  to  the  tech- 
nology of  all  participants  in  a 
patent  agreement  and  are  unable 
to  make  arrangements  for  the 
patents  of  any  of  the  cartel  mem- 
bers if  another  member  desires 
to  exercise  a  veto.  The  limitations 
thus  imposed  upon  concerns  en- 
gaged in  price  competition  are 
often  substantial.  Even  concerns 
which  possess  cartel  alliances  of 
their  own  are  frequently  barred 
from  use  of  portions  of  the  per- 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


tinent  technology  in  their  own 
fields  of  production.  Such  exclu- 
sions are  peculiarly  evident  in 
the  chemical  industry. 

An  example  was  cited  in  the 
description  of  patents  and  pro- 
cesses agreements  on  page  3  of 
this  memorandum.  Another  ap- 
pears in  restrictions  upon  access 
to  new  technological  develop- 
ments which  were  imposed  by 
du  Pont  in  connection  with  nego- 
tiations between  Imperial  Chemi- 
cal Industries  and  Rohm  &  Haas 
in  1937.  Imperial  Chemical  In- 
dustries recognized  that  its  agree- 
ment with  du  Pont  imposed 
limits  upon  its  ability  to  give  in- 
formation to  the  other  company. 

'It  is  quite  clearly  understood  that 
there  is  to  be  no  general  interchange 
of  information,  and  Rohm  &  Haas 
have  accepted  the  fact  that  we  are 
not  at  liberty  to  agree  to  any  such 
interchange.  All  that  the  agreement 
provides  for  is  an  exhcange  of  future 
patent  applications  relating  to  the 
methacrylate  sheet-casting  process, 
and  the  exchange  is  strictly  limited 
to  the  actual  specifications  as  filed, 
no  operating  or  other  details  being 
passed  to  Rohm  &  Haas  beyond  those 
contained  in  the  specifications  them- 
selves. In  the  event  of  any  patent 
being  filed  by  I.C.I,  based  on  du  Pont 
information,  that  patent  would  be 
withheld  from  Rohm  &  Haas.  Du 
Pont  patents  filed  in  Europe  at  the 
request  of  I.  C.  I.  do  not  come  into 
the  picture   at  all.' 

Even  thus  limited,  however, 
the  proposal  was  unsatisfactory 
to  du  Pont.  A  du  Pont  executive 
reported  as  follows  to  its  foreign 
relations  committee: 

'We  have  questioned  the  propriety 


13 


i 

H 

ill**' 

mssa 


wt 


mm 

mm1 


_HM81dfi 


5fG 
KJK&1 


tttm 


of  I.  C.  I.'s  proposal  to  enter  into 
an  agreement  with  Rohm  &  Haas  of 
Germany  licensing  them  on  their 
process  for  methacrylate  dentures  as 
we  understand  that  this  agreement 
involves  present  and  future  know 
how,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Rohm 
&  Haas  has  a  relationship  of  some 
sort  with  American  Rohm  &  Haas 
and  we  feel  that  I.  C.  I.'s  and  our 
own  information  is  bound  to  leak 
through  to  them.  Discussion  of  this 
point  will  probably  involve  the  whole 
question  of  licenses  to  third  parties 
in  non-exclusive  territory. 

'In  the  present  case  we  are  taking 
the  position  that  I.  C.  I.  will  impair 
the  value  of  the  rights  granted  to 
us  and  also  pass  along  information 
received  from  us  to  Rohm  &  Haas. 
Presumably  if  I.  C.  I.  secures  an  en- 
gagement from  Rohm  &  Haas  of 
Germany  not  to  pass  the  information 
along  to  their  U.  S.  Affiliates,  we 
have  not  basis  for  complaint  under 
the  terms  of  the  agreement.  How- 
ever, such  an  arrangement  cannot 
help  but  interfere  with  the  coopera- 
tion between  the  du  Pont  Plastics 
Department  and  I.  C.  I.  and  it  would 
seem  bad  policy  on  the  part  of  either 
party  to  make  an  arrangement 
which  will  operate  as  an  obstruction 
to  complete  cooperation  between  I. 
C.  I.  and  du  Pont.  In  this  and  simi- 
lar cases  it  would  seem  desirable  +o 
establish  a  policy  that  cooperation 
with  third  parties  should  be  limited 
insofar  as  possible  to  licenses  under 
patents,  even  if  it  is  occasionally 
necessary  for  one  of  the  parties  to 
forego   royalty  income   by  so   doing.' 

The  technical  progress  of  con- 
cerns which  are  not  participants 
in  cartels  is  frequently  handi- 
capped by  systematic  efforts  to 
deprive  them  of  an  opportunity 
to  make  and  market  inventions. 
The  methods  used  differ  from 
case  to  case.  A  contract  made  in 
1932  between  Autogiro  Co.  of 
America  and  Kellett  Aircraft 
Corpn.     provides      that      Kellett 


'  .  .  .  will  not  without  written  con- 
sent of  the  Licensor  take  or  operate 
under  or  exercise  any  license  under 
any  patent  or  application  for  patent 
not  owned  or  controlled  by  Licensor, 
nor  purchase  for  nor  embody  in  air- 
craft manufactured  by  or  for  it  and 
licensed  hereunder  any  device  or  ap- 
paratus covered  bv  patents  or  appli- 
cations for  patents  not  owned  or  con- 
trolled by  Licensor,  provided,  how- 
ever, that  this  paragraph  shall  not 
apply  to  patents  or  applications  for 
patents  for  inventions  which  are 
in  no  way  related  to  the  principle  of 
aircraft  with  rotative  wings  and 
which  are  equally  applicable  in  air- 
craft not  having  rotative  wings.' 

A  1937  contract  between  West- 
inghouse  Electric  and  Manufac- 
turing Co.  and  a  Czechoslovakian 
concern  includes  a  provision  by 
which  the  Czech  company  under- 
takes not  to  make,  use,  or  sell 
material  or  parts  of  the  types 
or  designs  of  other  manufacturers 
than  Westinghouse  nor  to  'seek 
the  advice  or  endeavor  to  obtain 
manufacturing  or  other  engineer- 
ing information  from  such  elec- 
trical manufacturers'  except  with 
the  consent  of  Westinghouse.  The 
hydrogen  peroxide  cartel  made 
contracts  with  prominent  techni- 
cal men  which  forbade  these  men 
to  sell  their  services  to  independ- 
ent concerns.  For  example,  a 
contract  in  1936  with  Dr.  Victor 
Makrow  stipulated  that  he  was 
not  to  build  hydrogen  peroxide 
plants  for  3  years  and  the  limita- 
tion was  subsequently  extended 
for  5  years  more.  An  agreement 
with  the  chief  engineer  of  anoth- 


14 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


JsVBSH 
■  m 


H 


■ 


41 


■•#". 


I 


:v^>. 


f'.'rf/r*' 


er  concern  provided  that  he 
should  not  offer  licenses  on  a 
jointly  developed  manufacturing 
process  to  foreign  countries.  Dur- 
ing negotiations  in  1939  for  re- 
newal of  a  contract  with  a  third 
technician  the  statement  was 
made  that  it  was  not  considered 
advisable  to  allow  this  expert 
the  possibility  of  acting  freely  in 
the  H202  field. 

Even  among  cartel  members 
the  commercial  application  of 
technical  progress  is  often  retard- 
ed. When  an  invention  of  fun- 
damental character  appears  like- 
ly to  bring  about  sharp  reduc- 
tions in  demand  or  a  rapid  ob- 
solescense of  established  produc- 
tive processes,  a  cartel  is  likely 
to  delay  introduction  of  the  pro- 
cess so  long  as  it  dares.  When 
the  development  of  the  hydro- 
genation  process  made  it  appear 
possible  to  produce  oil  cheaply 
from  coal,  an  agreement  was 
made  between  I.  G.  Farbenin- 
dustrie  and  Standard  Oil  of  New 
Jersey  by  which,  except  in  Ger- 
many, I.  G.  Farben  agreed  not 
to  enter  the  oil  industry,  and  in 
return  Standard  Oil  agreed  not 
to  enter  the  chemical  industry. 
By  this  agreement,  control  of  the 
hydrogenation  process  for  mak- 
ing oil  outside  of  Germany  was 
transferred  to  the  Standard  Oil 
Co.  in  order  that  Standard's  pe- 
troleum    investment     might     be 


fully  protected.  In  the  United 
States,  Standard  licensed  only 
the  large  oil  companies  which 
had  no  interest  in  exploiting  hy- 
drogenation. Outside  the  United 
States,  Standard  accepted  Shell 
as  a  partner  in  International 
Hydro-Patents  Co.,  through 
which  hydrogenation  patents 
were  controlled,  and  through  In- 
ternational Hydro-Patents  the 
two  proceeded  to  limit  use  of  the 
process  so  far  as  the  threat  of 
competing  processes  and  govern- 
mental interest  permitted.  In 
1935  a  statement  of  policy  by 
Standard  declared: 

'Subject  to  the  above  qualifica- 
tions, viz,  that  I.  H.  P.  should  not 
attempt  to  foment  interest  where 
none  exists,  I.  H.  P.  should  be  put 
in  the  position  of  an  independent 
patent  holding  and  licensing  com- 
pany, and  allowed  to  attempt  to  sell 
its  process  wherever  there  is  serious 
interest  in  hydrogenation  .  .  .  We 
cannot,  by  restricting  the  activities 
of  I.  H.  P.,  other  than  as  above  stat- 
ed, expect  to  do  more  than  retard 
slightly  the  development  of  coal,  tar, 
etc.,  by  hydrogenation,  and  a  policy 
of  repression  will  in  all  likelihood 
lose  to  us  the  advantage  which  is 
inherent  in  our  present  position.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  policy  outlined 
above  will  not  tend  to  stir  up  in- 
terest in  hydrogenation  if  it  does 
not  already  exist.  If  coal,  tar,  etc., 
hydrogenation  be  feasible  from  an 
economic  standpoint,  or  if  it  is  to 
be  promoted  for  nationalistic  reasons 
or  because  of  some  peculiar  local 
conditions,  it  is  better  for  us,  as  oil 
companies,  to  have  an  interest  in  the 
development,  obtain  therefrom  such 
benefits  as  we  can,  and  assure  the 
distribution  of  the  products  in  ques- 
tion through  our  existing  marketing 
facilities.' 


NOVEMBER,   1944 


15 


In  1937  a  Standard  official  re- 
ported that  Shell  had  instructed 
its  Shanghai  office  as  follows: 

'That  in  general  the  production  of 
oil  from  coal  (or  tar)  is  uneconomic 
and  can  only  be  carried  out  with 
substantial  duty  protection.  That  it 
is  clear  that  such  anti-economic  pro- 
duction is  against  the  interests  of  the 
Oil  Companies;  that  in  general,  there- 
fore, it  is  in  order  that  the  Oil  Com- 
panies should  try  to  prevent  coun- 
tries getting  interested  in  uneco- 
nomic production  of  motor  fuel.  That 
if  such  action  is  feasible  and  desir- 
able care  should  be  taken  however, 
that  it  be  made  quite  clear  by  the  Oil 
Companies  that,  if  nevertheless  the 
Government  should  be  interested  in 
going  ahead  with  synthetic  produc- 
tion then  the  best  solution  is  to  ap- 
ply the  I.  H.  P.  process  rather  than 
any  other  solution.' 

A  telegram  from  Standard  to 
Shanghai  expressed  concurrence 
with  this  view.  In  England,  when 
a  license  was  finally  granted  to 
Imperial  Chemical  Industries, 
production  by  that  company  was 
limited  to  25  percent  of  the  pro- 
duction of  Standard  and  Shell  in 
the  British  Empire. 

The  ingenuity  of  the  research 
organizations  which  serve  cartels 
is  at  times  perverted  to  the  de- 
velopment of  techniques  by 
which  the  power  of  a  cartel  may 
be  preserved.  If  a  cartel  has 
achieved  high  prices  in  selling  to 
one  group  of  customers,  its  scien- 
tists may  be  asked  to  provide  ob- 
stacles against  efforts  by  these 
companies  to  buy  cheaper  goods 
elsewhere.  This  form  of  research 


is  illustrated  by  the  activities  of 
one  of  the  world's  largest  labora- 
tories, engaged  in  organic  chemi- 
cal research  for  the  du  Pont  Co. 
Du  Pont  had  developed  a  pig- 
ment which  could  be  used  either 
as  a  paint  or  as  a  textile  dye  but 
feared  that  the  latter  use  would 
upset  the  structure  of  prices  upon 
textile  dyestuffs.  The  director  of 
the  du  Pont  laboratory  declared: 

'Further  work  may  be  necessary 
on  adding  contaminants  to  "Monas- 
tral"  colors  to  make  them  unsatis- 
factory on  textiles  but  satisfactory 
for   paints.' 

In   June    1940     the     laboratory 

reported: 

'  .  .  .  Mr.  Chantler  was  of  the 
opinion  that  pigment  mixtures,  un- 
suitable for  textile  printing  would  be 
very  difficult  to  obtain. 

'(B)  Agents  Injurious  to  Textile 
Printing. — The  suggestion  was  made 
that  certain  compounds  that  were 
white  under  ordinary  conditions  but 
that  would  be  oxidized  to  give  colored 
bodies  when  the  prints  are  subjected 
to  chlorine  bleach,  could  be  used.  A 
few  experiments  had  been  made 
along  this  line  using  such  compounds 
as  Chlorostain  H,  dianisidine  and  du 
Pont  Oxly  Black  Base.  Complete 
data  on  this  work  are  not  available. 
Mr.  Dahlen  expressed  the  opinion 
that  the  addition  of  such  compounds 
probably  would  cause  as  much  or 
more  damage  to  the  paint  trade  as  to 
textile  printing.' 

'Such  substances  as  ground  glass  and 
carborundum  were  suggested  for  in- 
corporation with  the  pigment.  While 
these  materials  would  undoubtedly 
scratch  printing  rolls,  there  is  con- 
siderable doubt  as  to  their  effect  in 
paints  and  lacquers.' 

Two  days  later  the  matter  was 
thoroughly  discussed  in  a  confer- 
ence with  representatives  of  Gen- 


16 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


HJ         Hfl 

Ha 

H  Hfl  H 

HHfl  H« 


■  5& 

HE 


■H      Ha 


eral  Aniline  Works.  The  re- 
sourcefulness with  which  re- 
search in  methods  of  adultera- 
tion had  been  carried  on  appears 
in  the  following  excerpts  from 
a  memorandum  of  the  confer- 
ence: 

'The  importance  of  solving  these 
problems  was  recognized,  and  it  was 
agreed  that  both  parties  would  work 
on  promising  ideas  which  resulted 
from  this  discussion  .  .  .  .After  de- 
tailed discussion  of  various  modes  of 
attack,  the  following  appeared  to  be 
outstanding: 

'1.  (a)  Mixtures  of  CPC  with 
Lakes. — The  most  promising  mode 
of  attack  appears  to  lie  in  the  formu- 
lation of  a  mixture  of  CPC  with  a 
lake,  especially  a  lake  of  CPC.  Such 
a  mixture  should  have  fairly  good 
fastness  to  light  and  yet  be  poor  in 
wash  fastness  on  textiles  or  incom- 
patible with  the  usual  textile  print- 
ing lacquers  .... 

'(d)  Deteriorate  Cotton. — Com- 
pounds might  be  incorporated  into 
CPC  which  when  applied  to  textiles 
and  followed  by  bleaching  or  heating 
treatment  might  increase  the  de- 
terioration of  the  cloth.  Compounds 
such  as  chlorates  or  aliphatic  halides 
which  would  produce  hydrochloric 
acid  were  specific  examples  .... 


'(g)    Irritating   substances It  is 

known  that  certain  resins  and  solT 
vents  are  irritating  to  the  skin,  often 
causing  dermatitis.  It  might  be  pos- 
sible to  formulate  a  CPC  composition 
which  will  make  textile  materials  ir- 
ritating to  the  skin. 

'(h)  Incorporation  of  grit. — It 
seemed  too  dangerous  to  attempt  to 
add  gritty  material  to  CPC  since,  al- 
though it  would  interfere  with  the 
use  of  the  material  for  textiles,  it 
would  also  offer  serious  disadvant- 
ages in  grinding  on  application  of 
surface    coatings. 

'It  was  agreed  that  mere  dulling 
of  the  material  would  not  be  a  satis- 
factory solution  since  dull  shades  are 
often  used  in  the  textile  trade.  .  .  .  ' 

Information  is  lacking  with 
which  to  estimate  the  relative 
proportion  of  the  research  effort 
of  cartels  which  is  devoted  to  the 
improvement  of  industrial  pro- 
cesses and  products,  to  the  devel- 
opment of  patents  which  are  in- 
tended to  keep  others  out  of  the 
industrial  field  without  being 
used  by  the  patent  owner,  and 
to  study  of  the  methods  for  the 
worsening  of  products  such  as 
have  been  described  above. 


*  WASHINGTON,  Sept.  7.— Germany  may  win  the  peace,  U.S.  Assistant  At- 
torney-General Wendell  Berge  told  senators  today,  unless  she  is  prevented 
from  gaining  trade  monopolies  through  the  cartel  system.  The  chief  of  the 
justice  department's  anti-trust  division  testified  before  a  military  affairs  sub- 
committee that  international  trade  agreements  such  as  he  said  existed  between 
Carl  Zeiss  of  Jena,  Germany,  and  the  Bausch  &  Lomb  Optical  Co.  of  Rochester, 
N.Y.,  enabled  Germany  'to  sabotage'  the  effectiveness  of  the  Versailles  Treaty. 

— Vancouver  Province 

it  SAN  FRANCISCO,  Oct.  7. — Eight  persons  were  arraigned  in  federal  court 
on  criminal  charges  of  monopolizing  the  world  supply  of  borax,  a  strategic 
war  chemical.  % 

The  grand  jury  indictment,  charging  conspiracy  to  restrain  interstate  trade 
and  to  create  a  monopoly  through  cartel  agreement,  was  returned  recently 
against  11  individuals  and  seven  companies.  — Associated  Press 


NOVEMBER,  1944 


17 


Rubber  From  a  Canadian  Weed 


Through  six  years  of  painstaking  effort  a  British  Columbian 
botanist  has  developed  a  weed  which  will  provide  us  with  a 
plentiful  supply  of  natural  rubber.  Let  us  make  sure  that  this 
scientific  advance  is  utilized  for  the  public  welfare,  and  is  not 
side-tracked  or  shelved  through  monopolistic  control  by  private 
enterprise. 


THIS  is  the  age  of  inventive 
'magic'  and  scientific  'mira- 
cles.' New  discoveries  every  day 
have  become  so  commonplace  that 
Mr.  John  Public  would  no  longer 
raise  his  eyebrows  were  he  to 
learn  that  a  means  of  transporta- 
tion had  now  been  found  where- 
by he  could  hop  over  to  Mars 
tomorrow  in  time  for  breakfast. 
It  is  only  when  these  new  in- 
ventions or  discoveries  occur 
nearer  to  us,  when  we  know  the 
district  in  which  the  discovery 
has  been  made,  or  the  people 
concerned  with  the  discovery, 
that  we  begin  to  appreciate  that 
there  are  things  happening  a- 
round  us  that  have  immense 
potentialities  for  all  North  Am- 
ericans. This  is  so  in  connection 
with  the  development  of  a  plenti- 
ful supply  of  rubber  from  a  na- 
tive British  Columbia  weed. 

When  the  present  total  war 
was  launched  upon  us  with  all  its 
international  complications,  we 
in  North  America  were  caught 
with  our  pants  down  on  rubber 
— the  international  cartels  had 
for  many  years  steadfastly  con- 
solidated  the   production   of  nat- 


18 


ural  rubber  in  areas  of  this  globe 
far  removed  from  the  North 
American  Continent,  and,  inci- 
dentally, we  the  people  of  North 
America,  did  precious  little  to 
counter  this  move.  And  we 
learned  our  lesson  dearly. 

Synthetic  rubber  plants  were 
financed  by  the  governments  of 
both  the  United  States  and  of 
Canada,  with  the  result  that  to- 
day our  future  consumption  of 
rubber  can  be  guaranteed  by  the 
production  capacity  of  our  syn- 
thetic rubber  plants.  We  are  no 
longer  dependent  upon  imports 
of  natural  rubber  from  planta- 
tions abroad. 

Coincident  with  the  develop- 
ment of  synthetic  rubber  plants 
throughout  North  America  there 
was  carried  on  at  Burnaby,  near 
Vancouver,  B.  C,  certain  experi- 
ments with  a  native  British  Co- 
lumbia weed  which  showed 
promise  of  a  latex  content  worth 
investigating.  The  discoverer  of 
this  plant,  Nick  Boldt,  was  a 
machinist  who  took  one  year  off 
during  the  past  six  years  to  per- 
fect his  newly  discovered  strain. 

The   results    hold    promise    of 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■'■'■'; 
'    ■      -      " 


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superiority  over  any  plant  pre- 
viously used  for  this  purpose, 
with  a  potential  yield  of  over  600 
pounds  of  rubber  per  acre,  al- 
most double  the  yield  obtainable 
from  a  standard  rubber  tree 
plantation,  which  is  roughly  335 
pounds  per  acre.  The  highest 
yield  yet  recorded  from  any  of 
the  plants  now  in  use,  such  as 
the  Russian  dandelion,  which  is 
being  developed  by  the  Goodrich 
Tire  Company,  in  the  United 
States,  is  around  200  pounds  per 
acre.  The  weed  grows  to  a 
height  of  12  to  18  feet,  shooting 
up  from  a  height  of  8  inches  at 
the  rate  of  2  ¥2  inches  every  24 
hours,  and  when  fully  grown  is 
about  2  inches  in  diameter,  pro- 
ducing about  18  percent  rubber 
recovery  from  the  latex  extrac- 
tion. This  is  similar  to  the  re- 
covery from  Malayan  plantations. 

The  latex  has  been  tested  in 
chemical  laboratories  in  both 
Vancouver  and  Seattle,  and  the 
results  give  the  rubber  a  high 
tensile  strength  and  quality.  The 
laboratories  state  that  one  im- 
mediate use  may  well  be  to  mix 
it  with  the  presently  produced 
synthetic  rubber  to  add*  to  its 
tensile  strength. 

The  Burnaby-developed  plant 
can  be  grown  in  virtually  any 
temperate  climate,  and  in  most 
types  of  soil.  No  irrigation  is 
necessary,  and  complete  maturity 

NOVEMBER,   1944 


is  reached  within  18   months   to 
2  years. 

The  Dominion  Research  Lab- 
oratory at  Ottawa  has  named  the 
plant  'Lactuca  Biennis,'  and  the 
plant  has  been  recognized  by  the 
National  Research  Council.  Ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Boldt,  who  has 
been  interested  in  rubber  planta- 
tions in  the  Dutch  East  Indies  for 
many  years,  each  plant  produces 
sufficient  seed  to  plant  one  acre, 
at  the  rate  of  28,000  plants  per 
acre,  and  there  is  already  on 
hand  sufficient  seed  from  his  ex- 
perimental farm  test-plots  to  sow 
more  than  500  acres. 

This  scientific  research  has 
produced  from  a  natural  weed 
still  another  source  of  natural 
rubber  upon  which  so  much  of 
our  modern  way  of  life  in  North 
America  depends,  for  we  do  liter- 
ally 'roll  on  rubber.'  Technoc- 
racy salutes  the  painstaking  ef- 
fort put  into  the  perfection  of 
this  discovery  by  Mr.  Boldt, 
pointing  out  once  again  that  in 
North  America  it  is  possible  to 
produce,  either  naturally  or  syn- 
thetically, every  necessary  com- 
ponent of  a  high-energy  civiliza- 
tion of  abundance  for  every  citi- 
zen. The  botanist  has  assisted  in 
showing  the  way  in  which  our- 
future  security  can  be  assured, 
but  Technocracy  has  a  question 
to  pose. 

In   this   issue   there    is    ample 


19 


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evidence  of  the  infiltration  of 
cartels  into  every  aspect  of  our 
economic  existence,  and  Technoc- 
racy wonders  how  long  it  will  be 
before  the  rubber  cartel  stifles 
this  newly  developed  process  and 
prevents  it  from  being  used  for 
the  public  weal.  That  they  can 
do  so  is  obvious  to  any  person, 
who  takes  the  trouble  to  read 
and  to  analyze  the  article  'How 
Cartels  Sabotage  Technology.' 
The  patents  that  would  mean 
vastly  improved  and  less  waste- 
ful processes  are  'on  the  shelf 
and  if  the  marketing  of  the  rub- 
ber from  this  British  Columbia 
weed  interferes  with  the  selling 
of  Malayan  rubber  after  this  war 
is  finished,  British  Columbians 
are  not  likely  to  see  waving  fields 
of  Lactuca  Biennis  in  Vancouver. 

Technocracy  may  well  ask: 
'Will  the  people  of  this  Continent 
permit  the  repression  of  this  dis- 
covery in  order  to  allow  business 
to  chisel  solely  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  business,  and  thereby 
hasten  the  cartelization  of  North 
America  and  consequent  fascist 
control?' 

This  discovery  of  rubber 
is  of  much  importance  to  our 
physical  economy,  but  just  what 
will  be  permitted  to  happen  to  it 
is  anyone's  guess.  Will  we  be  so 
foolish  that  we  turn  again  to  the 
East  for  our  natural  rubber,  and 
again  be  caught  short  at  a  time 


20 


of  national  crisis,  as  we  were  in 
1939?  Will  we  permit  the  scrap- 
ping of  the  huge  synthetic  rub- 
ber plants  built  from  public 
funds,  so  that  they  will  not  com- 
pete with  the  importation  of  nat- 
ural rubber  from  afar? 

The  answers  to  these  questions 
must  be  left  to  the  clear  thinking 
of  every  North  American.  But 
Technocracy  again  states  for  the 
record  that  if  we  do  permit  these 
things  to  occur,  we  indeed  shall 
be  inviting  a  paradise  of  morons 
on  this  Continent;  we  shall  be 
sabotaging  the  heritage  of  our 
children.  What  an  indictment  for 
them  to  remember  us  by. 

There  is  only  one  program  that 
is  offered  the  people  of  North 
America  whereby  such  sabotage 
would  become  impossible;  under 
which  full  and  efficient  use 
would  be  made  of  every  inven- 
tion and  discovery;  whereby  the 
welfare  of  every  North  American 
would  be  placed  before  that  of 
a  minority  of  pressure-group 
chisellers.  That  program  has 
been  laid  down  by  Technocracy 
Inc.,  and  it  is  the  responsibility 
of  every  North  American  to  in- 
vestigate this  program  before 
events  overtake  us  and  the  op- 
portunity  to   investigate  be  lost. 

North  Americans,  it  is  your  re- 
sponsibility. What  do  you  intend 
to  do  about  it? 

— Horace  W.  Carpenter 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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Power  (or  a  Continent 


Technocracy — the  only  organization  with  the  blueprints  of  a 
new  social  mechanism  for  North  America — outlines  the  speci- 
fications for  an  age  of  super  power  which  will  provide  security, 
abundance,  and  leisure  to  all  the  citizens  of  this  Continent. 


THROUGHOUT  history  men 
have  been  plagued  with  the 
problem  of  generating  power, 
and  today  on  this  Continent  not 
only  are  men  still  working  on 
the  problems  of  power  genera- 
tion, but  they  are  plagued  with 
the  now  more  significant  problem 
of  transmission. 

The  story  of  the  development 
of  society — a  story  of  energy — 
could  be  said  to  be  based  upon 
that  one  chapter — transmission. 
Man's  physical  progression  is  a 
direct  function  of  his  increasing 
use  of  energy  and  its  availability 
over  ever-wider  areas.  Man  was 
his  own  first  engine.  He  could 
dig  roots,  heave  rocks,  kill  ani- 
mals and  perform  other  crude 
tasks  not  requiring  a  great  ex- 
penditure of  energy;  but,  aside 
from  the  limited  capacity  of  the 
human  body,  the  salient  feature 
of  this  stage  of  man's  develop- 
ment was  that  the  energy  con- 
verted could  be  used  immediately 
and  on  the  spot.  He  could  not 
transmit  it  from  one  place  to  an- 


Reprinted      from      TECHNOCRACY, 
A-16,  by  kind  permission  of  CHQ. 


other.  Not  for  thousands  of 
years  was  he  able  to  overcome 
this  handicap.  Not  for  thousands 
of  years  was  he  able  to  visualize 
the  utilization  of  the  power  of  an 
entire  Continent  being  made 
available  over  Continental  Areas. 
When  he  used  cattle,  horses, 
and  slaves  at  hard  work  for  long 
hours  he  converted  more  energy 
but  the  limitation  remained:  he 
had  to  move  his  energy  convert- 
ers to  the  scene  of  the  work  for 
the  energy  could  not  be  trans- 
mitted. Other  historical  develop- 
ments in  the  production  of  power 
were  windmills,  crude  water 
wheels,  and  sails  for  boats,  but 
the  use  of  energy  was  still  limit- 
ed and  confined  to  within  a  few 
feet  of  the  point  of  generation. 

Then  in  the  eighteenth  century 
came  the  first  practical  steam  en- 
gines. A  parade  of  names  passed 
by — Savery,  Newcomen,  James 
Watt,  Corliss,  Parsons,  De  Laval. 
The  problems  of  generation  were 
being  solved.  Man's  status  began 
to  change  from  a  toiler  in  scar- 
city to  a  producer  of  abundance, 
but  yet  he  had  a  long  way  to  go 


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NOVEMBER,  1944 


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for  the  generation  was  crude  and 
the  transmission  still  limited  to 
but  a  few  feet.  However,  the 
range  was  extended,  for  in  1850, 
in  Alsace,  one  C.  F.  Hirn  trans- 
mitted 300  horsepower  a  distance 
of  6,500  feet  by  a  series  of  wire 
ropes  running  on  pulleys  or 
wheels.  His  ropes  ran  62  feet  a 
second  and  his  pulleys  were  177 
inches   in  diameter. 

With  the  development  of  elec- 
tricity man's  power  horizon 
widened.  Galvani,  in  1780,  dis- 
covered electric  current  when 
working  with  frogs'  legs.  Twenty 
years  later  Volta  produced  elec- 
tric current  by  chemical  action. 
Others  made  further  advances — 
Davy,  Oersted,  Ampere,  Ohm, 
Franklin.  In  1831  Faraday  pro- 
duced the  first  electric  generator 
with  the  history-making  discov- 
ery of  electromagnetic  induction, 
making  possible  the  generation  of 
electrical  energy  and  opening  up 
the  problem  of  transmission. 

On  the  North  American  Con- 
tinent (which  is  to  see  the  first 
extension  of  power  availability 
from  the  original  microcosmic 
scope  to  Continental  dimensions) 
the  march  of  power  transmission 
was  speedy  and  relentless.  In 
1882  the  first  central  electric 
station  was  constructed — Edi- 
son's Pearl  Street  Station  in  New 
York.  It  lit  incandescent  lamps 
in   an   area   of  one   square   mile. 


22 


Other  plants  for  lighting  were 
built  in  the  eighties  although  the 
area  of  service  was  small  on  ac- 
count of  the  voltage  employed  be- 
ing 110  and  220. 

In  1890  William  Stanley  and 
George  Westjinghouse  developed 
the  A.C.  system,  using  at  first 
voltages  of  220  and  440,  which 
allowed  a  distance  over  wider 
radii  for  the  plants.  Soon  2200- 
volt  systems  were  built,  using 
transformers  to  reduce  the  volt- 
age for  the  consumers,  and  ser- 
vice was  extended  to  the  resi- 
dence sections  of  cities.  In  1889 
the  Tesla  induction  motor  was 
brought  out.  Among  other  things 
this  made  it  unnecessary  for 
small  manufacturing  plants  to 
have  their  own  power  plant.  But 
2200  volts  still  limited  the  area 
over  which  a  power  plant  could 
give  service,  and  in  the  early 
nineties  we  find  the  voltage  in- 
creased to  11,000  to  transmit 
power  from  a  water-power  plant 
in  the  mountains  to  Pomona, 
California,  18  miles  away!  In 
1895  a  system  using  11,000  volts 
was  installed  on  the  American 
River  at  Folsom  to  transmit 
power  to  Sacramento. 

The  voltages  for  transmission 
increased  to  22,000,  33,000,  44,000, 
and  in  about  1898  the  transmis- 
sion of  power  at  60,000  volts  was 
planned  by  the  Standard  Electric 
Company    of    California.     About 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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1908  transmission  voltages  of 
100,000  were  used.  In  some  of 
these,  transmission  exceeded  150 
miles  and  the  amounts  of  power 
reached  30,000  horsepower  per 
line.  Then  a  line  for  165,000 
volts  from  San  Joaquin  River  to 
the  Los  Angeles  district  was 
built — a  distance  of  240  miles; 
later  came  a  220,000-volt  line 
from  the  Pit  River  to  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

In  1936,  with  the  installation 
of  the  world's  largest  generators 
at  Boulder  Dam,  power  was  sent 
by  285,000-volt,  double-tower 
lines  a  distance  of  about  300  miles 
into  Los  Angeles,  and  today  in 
many  places  on  the  Continent 
some  large  regional  networks  ex- 
ist which  extend  over  areas  of 
several  hundreds  of  miles. 

America  is  on  the  threshold  of 
its  age  of  super  power.  Its  age 
of  super  power  will  be  based  up- 
on the  development  of  the  great 
undeveloped  hydroelectric  power 
sources  of  the  Continent  lying 
mostly  far  from  our  centers  of 
population,  manufacturing,  and 
raw  materials.  We  have  on  this 
Continent  the  greatest  river  and 
lake  network  in  the  world,  al- 
most all  of  which  can  be  connect- 
ed into  a  waterway  system  for 
transportation,  irrigation,  and 
power.  By  a  system  of  canals, 
dams,  and  locks,  America's  rivers 
and  lakes  will   be   inter-connect- 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


ed  to  provide  waterway  trans- 
portation from  the  Gulf  of  Mexi- 
co to  the  Arctic  and  to  the  Paci- 
fic. On  practically  every  one  of 
these  rivers,  from  the  Yukon  in 
the  north  to  the  Alabama  in  the 
south,  power  can  be  generated. 
Most  of  America's  potential  wa- 
ter power  lies  in  the  north — the 
Northwest  Territories  of  Canada, 
Alaska,  the  Yukon,  British  Co- 
lumbia, Manitoba,  Ontario,  Que- 
bec, and  Labrador;  another  large 
area  embraces  Washington,  Ore- 
gon, and  California;  another  the 
southern  Atlantic  states. 

If  human  society  on  this  Con- 
tinent had  to  depend  upon  local- 
ized power  the  potential  abund- 
ance of  the  New  America  would 
never  be  realized.  To  drive  the 
tools  of  industry,  supply  traction, 
illumination,  communication,  and 
entertainment  for  the  North  Am- 
erican Continent  in  an  era  of 
abundance,  those  far-away  power 
sources  must  be  utilized.  As 
power  and  technology  have  cre- 
ated our  civilization,  so  must  we 
use  more  power  and  technology 
in  the  future.  The  195,400,000 
people  of  this  Continent  will 
have  to  be  rehoused.  Our  entire 
production,  transportation,  and 
living  facilities  will  have  to  be 
redesigned  and  reconstructed. 
An  abundance  of  food,  clothing, 
housing,  recreation,  and  travel 
will  have  to  be  provided  the  en- 


23 


tire  population.  This  will  require 
power  in  its  new  dimension — 
veritably  the  power  of  an  entire 
Continent  for  the  people  of  an 
entire  Continent,  and  in  the  mod- 
ern development  of  power  trans- 
mission lies  the  fulfillment  of 
North   America's   destiny. 

Technocracy  proposes  a  Conti- 
nental system  of  power  genera- 
tion and  transmission.  New  dams 
and  power  plants,  some  exceed- 
ing Boulder  and  Grand  Coulee, 
will  be  built.  Equipment  of  un- 
precedented sizes  and  capacities 
will  be  installed.  Thousands  of 
miles  of  main  transmission  lines 
criss-crossing  the  Continent  will 
be  laid.  All  power-producing 
areas  will  be  tapped  and  all  con- 
suming areas  will  be  served.  A 
network  of  secondary  lines  will 
join  the  main  ones  and  North 
America  will  be  embraced  in  one 
mammoth    electrical   system. 

Technocracy  presents  the  out- 
line for  the  utilization  of  our  hy- 
droelectric energy  resources  in  a 
Continental  system  of  power 
generation  and  long-distance 
transmission,  knowing  that  only 
the  unrestricted  application  of 
technology  can  accept  or  execute 
the  specifications.  The  magni- 
tude of  the  project  is  entirely  be- 
yond the  realm  of  business,  fin- 
ance and  political  government. 
When  technology  moves  up  to 
this     order     of     magnitude     the 


'thought  processes'  and  initiative 
of  the  Price  System  are  para- 
lyzed. Financing  on  that  scale 
would  be  impossible  and  so 
would  management  under  the  in- 
dividualism of  the  Price  System. 
Technocracy  knows  that  no  Price 
System  enterprise,  governmental 
or  otherwise,  can  accept  or  even 
consider  these  specifications.  And 
Technocracy  realizes  that  only 
functional  control  under  techno- 
logical direction  on  a  Continental 
basis  could  administer  such  a 
system. 

America's  trained  technologists 
are  numerous  enough  and  ex- 
perienced enough  to  build  and  in- 
stall a  Continental  power  net- 
work. America's  technologists 
have  been  working  on  the  prob- 
lems involved  in  power  transmis- 
sion, and  today  the  way  is  open 
for  the  transmission  of  electricity 
for  distances  of  3,000  miles  and 
more!  Up  until  today  300  miles 
was  a  great  achievement,  but 
technology's  advancements  will 
annihilate  distance  and  make  it 
possible  to  bind  this  Continent 
into  one  indivisible  unit. 

Twenty  years  ago  a  method  of 
overcoming  the  limitations  of 
electrical  transmission  for  long 
distances  was  proposed.  In  the 
spring  of  1924  the  original  work 
of  a  Continental  power  trans- 
mission system,  forming  the 
basis  of  the  system  here  proposed 


24 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


H 

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by  Technocracy  Inc.,  was  done 
by  Howard  Scott,  now  Director- 
in-Chief  of  Technocracy  Inc.  At 
that  time  Howard  Scott  was  Con- 
sulting Engineer  for  the  Depart- 
ment of  Architecture  of  the  State 
of  New  York  under  the  direction 
of  Sullivan  E.  Jones,  State  Archi- 
tect. Assigned  as  assistants  to 
Howard  Scott  were  Frank  Lord 
and  William  Foster,  engineers  of 
the  State  of  New  York.  They 
were  assigned  to  draw  up  a  pow- 
er transmission  report  for  the 
State  which  was  to  form  the  basis 
of  a  New  York  Power  Authority. 
The  work  was  done  in  an  office 
of  the  State  of  New  York  in  the 
Flatiron  Building  in  New  York 
City. 

Realizing  that  power  was  more 
than  a  local  problem  and  that  the 
future  would  certainly  extend  it 
to  unheard  of  proportions  it  was 
obvious  that  the  limitations  of 
transmitting  electricity  by  alter- 
nating current  must  be  overcome 
to  make  the  power  available 
over  long   distances. 

Howard  Scott  therefore  recom- 
mended that  plans  for  Continent- 
al distribution  be  perfected.  To 
accomplish  long-distance  trans- 
mission he  proposed  that  direct 
current  be  used.  Maps  showing 
a  network  of  transmission  lines 
across  the  Continent  were  pre- 
pared and  a  large  quantity  of 
data  collected  and  collated. 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


In  1939,  in  the  January  issue 
of  Power  Plant  Engineering,  the 

late  J.  D.  Ross,  engineer,  and 
Bonneville  Administrator  said: 
"The  whole  nation  can  have  Co- 
lumbia power  in  its  factories  and 
homes.  This  statement  is  past 
being  a  prophecy.  It  is  a  fact. 
This  can  be  accomplished  by  the 
use  of  direct  current  transmis- 
sion.' 

Technocracy  Inc.  herewith  pre- 
sents its  preliminary  specifica- 
tions for  the  transmission  of  pow- 
er, not  only  throughout  the  Uni- 
ted States,  but  anywhere  on  the 
Continent  of  North  America. 
These  are  presented,  not  to  any 
local  or  national  political  body, 
but  to  the  technologists  and  the 
people  of  the  North  American 
Continent.  These  specifications 
are  as  outlined  in  the  following 
paragraphs. 

The  power  shall  be  generated 
by  presently  installed-type  equip- 
ment, which  is  mostly  60  cycle, 
3  phase  A.C.,  at  generator  volt- 
age, and  shall  be  stepped  up  by 
transformers  to  1,000,000  volts, 
60  cycle,  3  phase  A.C.  It  shall 
be  converted  from  1,000,000  volts, 
60  cycle,  3  phase  A.C.  to  1,000,000 
volts   D.    C.   by   tube   converters. 

All  main  transmission  lines 
will  be  1,000,000  volts  D.C  The 
transmission  cables  will  be  2,500,- 
000  cm.  copper  conductors  or 
aluminum  equivalent.  These  con- 


25 


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ductors  shall  be  carried  under- 
ground in  the  same  manner  as  a 
pipe  line,  using  standard  speci- 
fication oil  pipe  line  for  the  out- 
side. Inside  shall  be  pyrex  glass 
pipe  centered  within  the  steel 
pipe  line  by  glass  pyrex  rings. 
The  pyrex  glass  pipe,  surround- 
ing the  2,500,000  cm.  conductor, 
shall  be  of  such  a  diameter  and 
of  such  strength  as  to  carry  suffi- 
cient nitrogen  gas  under  pressure 
to  act  as  a  primary  insulating 
medium  immediately  surround- 
ing the  copper  conductor.  The 
conductor  shall  be  centered  with- 
in the  glass  pipe  by  skeleton  glass 
rings.  The  space  between  the 
pyrex  glass  pipe  line  and  the  steel 
pipe  line  shall  be  filled  with  oil 
of  the  required  dielectric  proper- 
ty and  dyed  so  that  in  case  of 
leakage  the  color  will  show  on 
the  surface. 

This  1,000,000-volt  pipe  line 
transmission  system  will  be  built 
in  duplicate,  otherwise  known 
as  two  circuits.  Direct  current 
carried  at  1,000,000  volts  can  be 
transmitted  3,000  miles  with  a 
line  drop  of  approximately  10 
percent. 

A  Continental  power  transmis- 
sion system  so  designed  would 
enable  power  to  be  shifted  in- 
stantaneously to  meet  any  Con- 
tinental emergency  or  demand. 
It  would  render  power  so  cheap 
that  the  present  system  of  selling 


and  purchasing  power  by  private 
utilities  would  not  be  tolerated, 
as  the  cost  of  installing  and  read- 
ing meters,  and  billing  and  ac- 
counting to  individuals  would  in- 
volve far  more  human  effort  for 
these  operations  than  would  be 
required  for  the  entire  power 
produced  on  this  Continental 
network. 

Secondary  distribution  of  pow- 
er would  utilize  the  existing  sec- 
ondary lines.  The  1,000,000-volt 
D.C.  pipe  lines  could  be  tapped  at 
any  point  into  converters  and 
converted  to  60  cycle,  3  phase 
alternating  current  and  stepped 
down  to  the  required  secondary 
voltage,  thereby  rendering  un- 
necessary the  scrapping  of  any 
existing  secondary  distribution 
equipment.  The  Continental 
power  system  would  therefore 
utilize  all  of  the  generating  and 
secondiary  switching,  transform- 
ing, and  distribution  equipment 
now  in  place. 

Thus  physical  advancement  is 
bringing  to  the  point  of  realiza- 
tion the  process  and  the  network 
outlined  20  years  ago  by  the 
Director-in-Chief  of  Technocracy 
Inc.  On  this  Continent  the  pro- 
gression from  isolated  batch  pro- 
cesses to  integrated  technological 
sequences  is  integral  in  the  Con- 
tinental physical  structure;  that 
is,  the  physical  structure  of  this 
Continent  tends  toward  the   op- 


26 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


& 


1 


eration  of  the  Continent  on  a 
Continental  basis.  Parallel  with 
this  is  the  inherent  tendency  of 
technology  to  expand  its  opera- 
tions in  a  one-way  progression 
from  one  magnitude  to  the  next 
greater  one.  The  end  is  reached 
when  it  embraces  and  includes 
the  entire  physical  system  where- 
in it  operates. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  the 
present  installed  hydroelectric 
capacity  of  the  United  States  and 
Canada  combined  is  22,298,203 
kw.,  while  the  total  potential 
capacity  of  the  two  countries  is 
estimated  at  97,947,695  kw.  This, 
however,  does  not  include  addi- 
tional power  which  would  result 
from  the  development  of  a  Con- 
tinental Hydrology.  The  prepon- 
derance of  the  undeveloped 
power  is  in  Canada. 

The  rivers  of  America  which 
carry  this  power  are  unique  in 
their  length,  flow,  and  configura- 
tion. In  the  north  we  have  the 
Yukon  rising  in  Canada  and 
flowing  through  Alaska  to  the 
sea.  East  of  that  and  also  flowing 
north  is  the  mighty  Mackenzie. 
Neither  of  these  rivers  have  been 
adequately  surveyed.  Their  po- 
tential capacity  would  doubtless 
run  into  millions  of  kws.  Indeed, 
few  of  the  rivers  in  Canada  have 
been  fully  surveyed.  The  Cana- 
dian estimates  are  based  only  on 
known  and  thoroughly  surveyed 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


sites.  No  consideration  in  the 
estimates  is  given  to  the  unsur- 
veyed  rivers  or  even  to  power 
possibilities  on  rivers  of  gradual 
descent  where  dams  could  be 
built.  Canada's  developed  power 
sites  plus  the  undeveloped  sites 
which  have  been  surveyed  could 
produce  229  billion  kw-hrs.  per 
year  at  80  percent  of  capacity. 
But  this  is  only  a  fraction  of  the 
ultimate  possibilities.  Other  great 
Canadian  rivers  are  the  Peace 
and  the  Athabasca  which  are 
tributary  to  the  Mackenzie.  On 
the  plains,  flowing  eventually  in- 
to the  Hudson  Bay,  are  the  Sas- 
katchewan, the  Nelson,  and  the 
Churchill.  The  latter  two  rivers 
are  rated  at  nearly  5,000,000 
horsepower  by  present  surveys! 
British  Columbia  and  eastern 
Canada  teem  with  great  rivers — 
the  Fraser,  the  St.  Lawrence,  and 
others  unnamed  plus  those  in 
Labrador. 

In  the  United  States  there  are 
22  rivers  that  could  produce  an 
annual  output  each,  ranging  from 
a  minimum  of  two  billion  kilo- 
watt-hours in  the  Savannah  to  a 
maximum  of  66  billion  in  the 
Columbia.  There  are  altogether 
1,183  known  undeveloped  water 
power  sites  in  the  United  States. 
The  total,  potential,  estimated 
annual  output  of  the  rivers  of  the 
United  States  is  418  billion  kw.- 
hrs.    at   80   percent    of    capacity. 


27 


Sixty-four  percent  of  this  is  in 
the  Pacific  southwest  and  north- 
west. This  then,  would  provide 
the  basis  of  America's  power  net- 
work in  a  Technocracy. 

A  Continental  power  trans- 
mission system  designed  to  meet 
the  specifications  herein  set  down 
would  enable  the  development  of 
hydroelectric  sources  on  any  part 
of  the  Continent.  In  the  north 
lie  vast  sources  of  power,  much 
greater  than  the  immediately 
surrounding  areas  will  ever  re- 
quire. The  power  surplus,  after 
meeting  all  requirements  in  those 
areas,  will  be  available  for  trans- 
mission to  other  parts  of  the  Con- 
tinent where  population  density 
will  be  greater.  The  power  from 
these  vast  sources  of  the  north 
will  therefore  be  sent  to  the 
southern  portions  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  power  generated 
in  the  southern  portions  of  the 
United  States  will  be  sent  still 
further  south  to  Mexico,  Central 
America,  and  the  Panama  where 
there  is  need  of  power  and  in- 
sufficient resources. 

In  this  manner,  the  power  of 
the  Yukon  River  will  be  develop- 
ed and  sent  to  Los  Angeles  if 
necessary.  Power  from  the  Nel- 
son and  the  Churchill  in  northern 
Manitoba  would  be  available  in 
New  Mexico.  Power  on  the 
Peace  and  the  Athabasca  will  be 
developed.      (At    Hudsons    Hope 


on  the  Peace  River  near  the 
boundary  of  Alberta  and  B.  C. 
is  a  site  which  it  is  estimated  will 
develop  more  power  than  Boul- 
der Dam.)  In  Labrador  we  have 
the  little  known  Hamilton  River 
with  its  Grand  Falls.  This  stream 
drains  a  high  plateau  from  1,000 
lakes,  cuts  through  a  height  of 
land,  and  after  falling  750  feet  in 
12  miles  takes  one  stupendous 
leap  of  316  feet.  This  is  only  a- 
bout  150  miles  north  of  the  shore 
of  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence.  Ov- 
er 1,000,000  horsepower  is  con- 
tinually running  to  waste  over 
this  one  fall  and  no  attempt  has 
been  made  to  harness  it.  Two 
other  rivers  within  25  miles  leap 
over  the  same  fault  in  the  rocks. 
Power  from  these  sources  would 
be  available  in  Tennessee  or 
Mississippi. 

The  great  Fraser  River  of  Bri- 
tish Columbia  will  be  developed. 
Power  from  giant  Grand  Coulee, 
Bonneville,  and  from  other 
sources  on  the  mighty  Columbia 
will  be  available  in  Los  Angeles 
and  in  other  southern  cities. 
From  Boulder  Dam  in  Nevada, 
from  the  Sacramento  River  in 
California,  power  will  go  into 
Mexico  and  Panama.  And  from 
the  mighty  sources  now  being 
developed  by  the  Tenessee  Val- 
ley Authority  will  come  power 
that  also  could  be  sent  as  far  as 
Panama.      East    and    west,    north 


28 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


;*A4 


Eft 


and  south  across  the  Continent 
will  go  the  network  of  main 
transmission  lines  with  its  system 
of  secondary  distribution  lines 
and  equipment. 

Abundance  and  security  have 
not  been  realized  by  the  people 
of  North  America.  What  abund- 
ance we  have — and  it  is  far  great- 
er than  that  enjoyed  by  any 
other  peoples — is  because  of  our 
technological  developments,  de- 
velopments which  have  occurred 
in  spite  of  the  incentives  of  busi- 
ness. America  has  not  been  built 
by  business  and  democracy,  but 
by  technology;  and  the  point  has 
been  reached  where  America  can 
progress  no  further  as  long  as  the 
restrictions  of  business  and  de- 
mocratic government  remain. 
The  Price  System  limits  the  de- 
velopment of  our  great  reservoirs 


of  power. 

Business  and  democratic  gov- 
ernment cannot  release  the  teem- 
ing resources  of  this  Continent. 
The  regimentation  of  the  people 
under  a  proletarian  hierarchy 
cannot  release  them;  neither  can 
the  suppression  and  regimenta- 
tion of  the  people  under  a  fascis- 
tic  dictatorship.  America's  future 
lies  only  in  the  further  applica- 
tion of  technical  science  to  all 
processes  of  production  and  dis- 
tribution. Technology  has  but 
to  maintain  its  grand  march  and 
be  extended  to  all  social  pro- 
cesses on  this  Continent  and  we 
shall  see  a  civilization  the  like  of 
which  mankind  has  never  known. 
The  power  of  the  Continent  will 
become  fluid  and  available  every 
minute,  every  second  of  every 
day.  — L.  M.  Dickson 


The  March  of  Power 

•fa  IN  CANADA  98  percent  of  all  electricity  generated  for  sale  is  produced 
by  water  power,  and  electric  power  provides  the  motive  force  for  80  percent 
of  the  Dominion's  industry  today. 

It  took  Canada  a  half  century  to  build  up  the  power  system  of  8,190,000 
horsepower  she  had  in  1939.  Then  Total  War  came  along  and  speeded  up  our 
electric  production  facilities  to  such  an  extent  that  during  1943  alone  we  saw 
the  addition  of  1,002,273  horsepower  of  hydroelectric  capacity,  and  Munition 
Department  officials  have  estimated  that  Canada  will  emerge  from  the  war 
with  a  capacity  21  percent  in  excess  of  1939. 

The  Canada  Year  Book  for  1943  estimates  our  potential  capacity  at  51,350,000 
horsepower.  Of  this  figure  only  19.54  percent  has  as  yet  been  developed. 
Taking  the  average  available  six-month  flow,  on  a  24-hour  basis,  and  at  80 
percent  factor,  the  Canada  Year  Book  arrives  at  an  estimate  of  39,511,700 
horsepower  of  net  deliverable  energy. 

More  than  56  percent  of  Canada's  installed  power  capacity  is  in  Quebec 
which,  despite  heavy  needs  of  its  own  industry,  is  able  to  export  25  percent  of 
its  power  output  to  Ontario.  Quebec  has  an  installed  capacity  of  spme  5,700,- 
000  horsepower.  Ontario  ranks  second  with  2,670,000  horsepower,  and  British 
Columbia — second  to  Quebec  in  available  waterpower  resources — has  796,000 
horsepower. 


NOVEMBER,  1944 


29 


Steep  Rock  Iron  Ore  Development 

Through  the  Steep  Rock  iron  ore  project  Canada  can  make  a 
mighty  contribution  towards  a  New  America  of  abundance  for 
all  the  citizens  of  this  Continent. 


<"l~>  HE  giant  shovel  dipped  and 
A  took  a  three-ton  bite  of  rich, 
iron-bearing  earth.  Steep  Rock 
mine  was  open  at  last.  The  men 
who  saw  this  happen  in  the  wild- 
erness near  Atikokan,  Ont  knew 
they  were  seeing  economic  his- 
tory in  the  making. 

Steep  Rock  is  a  range  of  super- 
hard  hematite  ore,  the  best  on 
the  Continent.  Its  proved  and 
probable  iron  deposits  total  at 
least  25  million  tons.  Engineers 
estimate  unproved  reserves  up  to 
ten  times  this  figure.  Expected 
annual  production  by  1946:  2  mil- 
lion tons.  This  is  small  change 
compared  to  the  65  million  tons 
produced  last  year  by  Minneso- 
ta's famed  Mesabi  range,  but  the 
comparison  does  not  show  the 
real  importance  of  Steep  Rock 
to  the  Canadian  and  U.  S.  steel 
industries. 

What  Steep  Rock  will  ultimate- 
ly mean  to  Canada,  no  one  yet 
can  say.  Some  Canadians  have  al- 
ready talked  optimistically  of  'a 
great   metropolis   in   the  bush  of 


Reprinted   from   TIME   by    kind    per- 
mission  of  the    publisher. 


Atikokan,  where  great  smelters 
will  belch  smoke  .  .  .  .'  This  much 
is  sure:  The  Dominion,  hitherto 
dependent  on  the  U.S.,  now  has 
a  large  iron  ore  supply  of  its 
own.  This  does  not  mean  Canada 
will  now  supply  fully  the  furn- 
aces of  its  own  young  but  lusty 
and  growing  steel  industry.  But 
it  does  mean  that  Canada  will 
now  become,  for  the  first  time,  an 
iron  ore  exporter.  And  no  long- 
er will  Canada  have  to  import  as 
much  U.S.  ore  of  grades  com- 
parable  to    Steep   Rock's. 

In  steelmaking,  varied  grades 
of  ore  are  used.  Steep  Rock's 
high-grade  iron  ore  (it  has  a  low 
silica  and  high  iron  content)  is 
ideal  for  mixing  with  lower- 
grade  U.  S.  ores.  It  would  be 
impractical  to  use  Steep  Rock 
ore  exclusively  in  steelmaking. 
Consequently  Canada  will  ship 
much  of  Steep  Rock's  production 
to  the  U.  S.  and  continue  to  im- 
port lower-grade  U.  S.  ores. 

Geologists  first  stumbled  on 
traces  of  iron  ore  around  Steep 
Rock  Lake  40  miles  north  of  the 
Minnesota  border  in  1891.  In  the 
early    1900's,   Harvard    geologist, 


30 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


.-i;.-.™--" 


Hhh 


i     M 


m  I        IB 


■      ■     ■    I 


ASS  ■ 


H.  L.  Smyth  decided  the  main 
deposit  might  be  under  the  lake 
itself.  In  1930,  Julian  G.  Cross, 
an  Ontario  prospector,  poked 
around  the  site,  came  away  sure 
he  had  something. 

He  did  not  get  around  to  find- 
ing a  backer  for  7  years.  Then 
the  late  Joseph  Errington,  a 
Toronto  engineer,  listened  for  5 
minutes,  took  a  chance.  For 
$2,400  he  and  Cross  bought  up  a 
lot  of  old  claims.  They  drilled 
under  the  M-shaped  lake,  ulti- 
mately found  at  least  3  big  ore 
bodies.  Finding  the  ore  was  one 
thing,  getting  it  out  was  another. 

Chief  problem:  to  drain  Steep 
Rock  Lake,  which  is  fed  by  the 
Seine  River.  It  was  first  neces- 
sary to  lower  the  level  of  nearby 


Finlayson  Lake  57  ft.,  then  divert 
the  Seine  into  it.  Dams  were 
built,  canals  and  tunnels  cut. 
Once  the  Seine  was  diverted,  14 
mammoth  barge-mounted  pumps 
began  sucking  125  billion  gallons 
of  water  out  of  Steep  Rock  Lake 
itself. 

Cost  of  all  this  was  roughly 
$18  million.  Part  was  supplied 
by  the  Dominion  and  Ontario 
Governments.  Part  came  from 
the  U.  S.  Reconstruction  Finance 
Corporation  in  a  tightly  hedged 
5  million  dollar  loan  at  4%  made 
to  provide  iron  insurance  for  the 
United  Nations'  war  effort.  Part 
came  from  stock  sales  to  the 
public.  Part  was  supplied  by 
Cleveland  Financier  Cyrus  Eat- 
on, when  Canadian  capitalists 
proved  overcautious. 


;■-■?■.. 


mtim 


First  Shipment  of  Ore  Leaves  Steep  Rock  Lake 

*  ATIKOKAN,  Ont.,  Oct.  4. — The  first  shipment  of  iron  ore  from  the 
$10,000,000  development  at  Steep  Rock  Lake  left  here  Tuesday  for  a  refinery 
at   Superior,  Wis. 

Ceremony  marked  the  departure  of  the  first  shipment  from  the  northwestern 
Ontario  development,  an  engineering  feat  which  included  drainage  of  Steep 
Rock  Lake  and  diversion  of  the  Seine  River. 

Most  of  the  ore  lies  under  the  lake  which  shows  depths  up  to  400  feet  in 
spots. 

Prominent  Canadian  mining  and  railway  authorities  travelled  with  the  first 
shipment,  and  before  crossing  into  the  United  States,  were  met  at  Fort 
Frances    Ont.,   by   civic   and   Chamber   of   Commerce   representatives. 

Steep  Rock  is  135  miles  northwest  of  Port  Arthur,  where  more  than  a 
$1,000,000  is  being  spent  on  construction  of  waterfront  docks  for  ore  ship- 
ments. With  completion  of  the  docks,  shipment  will  be  made  from  the  Lake- 
head  port.  — Canadian  Press 


*  COAL  SUPPLIES  55  percent  of  all  United  States  mechanical  energy, 
powers  95  percent  of  railroad  locomotives,  generates  55  percent  of  the  elec- 
tricity, heats  four  out  of  every  seven  homes,  and  is  essential  in  the  making  of 
all  steel. 


NOVEMBER,  1944 


31 


•  '      ••■ 


manKfS 


tKaS 


ME 

HHwrSS 


ram 


SHE 


IS 


WA 


m*mWtBmmWE&- 


•In* ' 
Iffv 


Home  \i\sl  of  the  Furies 


Today  our  scientists,  technologists,  and  engineers  are  building 
weapons  of  destruction  to  defeat  fascism;  when  the  war  is  won 
let  us  install  a  new  social  mechanism  which  will  utilize  their 
genius   for  constructive   purposes. 


HERE  is  a  broad  level  plain, 
set  among  gently  rolling  low 
hills  in  the  fertile  Miami  Valley 
in  southern  Ohio.  Clustered  at 
one  side,  and  mounting  toward 
the  summits  of  the  grassy  knolls 
are  a  series  of  big  squat  build- 
ings, all  gray  concrete  and  self- 
framed  windows.  Overhead,  one 
or  two  planes  cruise  lazily,  their 
gray-green  camouflage  glinting 
dully  in  the  bright  sunshine  of 
an   autumnal   day. 

It  all  looks  peaceful  and  past- 
oral, but  it  is  not.  For  this  is  the 
home  nest  of  furies,  the  place 
where  airplanes  for  war  are  cre- 
ated (with,  of  course,  the  aid  of 
the  engineers  employed  by  the 
aviation  companies).  From  these 
grassy  fields,  laced  with  straight 
ribbons  of  concrete  runway,  have 
come,  in  all  but  actual  manufac- 
ture, the  huge  bombers  dropping 
their  deadly  fruit  on  the  men  of 
Nagasaki,  or  leaving  Berlin  a  sea 
of  flame  behind  them;  the  fight- 
ers making  a  hell  of  the  roads 
back    of    the    German     lines    in 


Reprinted  from  the  September  18  is- 
sue   of   the   THE    NEW    REPUBLIC 


France;  the  troop  carriers  from 
which  the  parachute  men  spilled 
out  over  Normandy  on  D-Day, 
with  their  shouts  of  'Geronimo!'; 
and  every  one  of  the  scores  of 
other  special  types  of  planes  for 
special  types  of  military  service. 
This  rural  landscape,  mellowing 
in  the  cool  sunshine,  is  one  of  the 
two  or  three  most  important  mili- 
tary areas  on  earth,  if  not  indeed 
No.  1  on  that  list. 

Through  absolutely  no  enter- 
prise or  initiative  of  my  own,  I 
have  just  spent  two  days  at 
Wright  Field,  the  guest  of  the 
Material  Command,  which  is  part 
of  the  Material,  Maintenance  and 
Distribution  Division,  which  is 
part  of  the  Army  Air  Forces.  I 
saw  many  things  which  I  found 
of  absorbing  interest. 

I  do  not  propose  to  pretty  up, 
still  less  to  glorify,  aerial  war- 
fare. All  war  is  a  ghastly  busi- 
ness; I  have  been  opposed  to  it 
all  my  life  and  still  am.  Until, 
however,  the  politicians  manage 
to  create  a  warless  world,  it  is 
important  that  we  should  win  the 
wars  that  are  forced  upon  us. 
The  army,  which  hates  war  even 


32 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


&    '   ■      ■ 


■ 


TT 


■ 


more  than  you  and  I  because  it 
knows  more  about  it,  is  concern- 
ed with  that  job. 

In  1917,  the  seven  sons  of  Gen- 
eral Anson  McCook,  of  Civil  War 
renown,  had  a  handsome  farm 
of  6,000  acres  in  the  Miami  Val- 
ley. Their  farms  became  the 
nucleus  of  what  is  now  the  sub- 
stantially larger  area  of  Wright 
Field.  At  that  spot  assembled 
what  the  army  proudly  insists  is 
the  greatest  collection  of  aero- 
nautical brains  on  earth — more 
than  10,000  highly  trained  speci- 
alists, plus  thousands  more  civi- 
lian assistants.  Many  of  these 
specialists  have  the  authentic 
earmarks  of  genius;  they  are  ob- 
sessed with  the  daemon  of  their 
specialty,  day  and  night,  week- 
days and  Sundays.  Many  of 
them  adapt  themselves  to  mili- 
tary discipline  only  with  the 
greatest  difficulty;  they  find  it 
hard  to  keep  their  buttons  but- 
toned and  their  shoes  polished, 
or  to  salute  all  superior  officers 
before  being  saluted,  when  their 
minds  are  miles  away  in  the  sky 
with  a  problem  of  aerodynamics. 
They — and  their  brothers  in  simi- 
lar establishments  elsewhere  in 
the  United  States  and  abroad, 
serving  not  only  the  air  forces 
but  artillery,  infantry,  the  navy, 
the  Coast  Guard — have  achieved 
the  results  that  we  are  now  be- 
ginning  to   see    realized    in    the 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


headlines  in  today's  paper.  Speci- 
fically, Wright  Field  has  designed 
planes,  guns,  instruments,  safety 
equipment,  it  has  tested  materi- 
als, supplies,  human  beings  to 
make  the  AAF  not  only  by  far 
the  biggest  but,  so  they  believe, 
by  far  the  best  that  exists  any- 
where on  earth. 

Wright  Field  did  not  swing  in- 
to action  after  Pearl  Harbor.  It 
had  never  been  out  of  action. 
Through  the  years  it  had  design- 
ed and  redesigned,  tested  and 
double  tested.  The  blueprints 
were  all  ready,  even  though  the 
planes,  in  quantity  production, 
were  not.  (Quantities  cost 
money,  and  Congress,  supported 
by  you  and  me,  for  a  number  of 
reasons  some  of  which  do  us 
credit  and  some  do  not  wouldn't 
spend  the  money.)  It  takes  about 
three  years  for  a  new  airplane — 
a  four-engine  bomber  for  ex- 
ample— to  go  from  the  designing 
board  to  the  delivery  of  effective 
quantities  on  the  battlefield.  I 
have  the  authority  of  Major- 
General  Charles  E.  Bradshaw  for 
the  statement  that  the  European 
aspect  of  the  war  will  almost  cer- 
tainly be  won  with  equipment 
planned  before  Pearl  Harbor. 
Major-General  Oliver  P.  Echols 
informs  us  that  the  comparative- 
ly new  bombers,  the  Flying 
Fortress  and  the  Liberator, 
were  developed  before  Germany 


33 


WSBBBb& 


invaded  Poland.  The  magnifi- 
cent new  fighters,  Lightnings, 
Thunderbolts  and  Mustangs, 
were  already  being  built  in  small 
quantities  before  the  fall  of 
France.  Naturally,  Wright  Field 
is  working  now  on  the  airplanes 
of  four  or  five  years  hence;  and 
naturally,  the  details  are  a  close- 
ly guarded  secret.  Incidentally, 
there  is  a  limit  to  the  improve- 
ments that  can  be  made  in  any 
given  type  of  plane.  You  can 
hang  only  so  many  gadgets  on  a 
Christmas  tree.  After  a  few 
years,  therefore,  it  is  better  to 
start  over. 

A  plane  must  move,  at  great 
speed,  through  a  resistant  medi- 
um, the  air.  How  the  air  flows 
over  each  part  of  the  plane  is 
therefore  a  matter  of  tremendous 
importance.  Not  long  after  ten- 
tative designs  come  off  the  draw- 
ing boards,  you  want  wind-tun- 
nel tests.  At  Wright  Field  the 
wind-tunnel  buildings  are  gigan- 
tic and  misshapen,  with  huge 
aluminum-colored  tubes,  more 
than  20  feet  across,  coming  out  of 
their  sides,  making  hairpin  turns 
and  going  back  again.  They 
looked  to  me  the  way  the  tubing 
on  a  vacuum  sweeper  must  look 
to  an  ant.  In  these  tunnels 
wind  velocities  of  600  miles  per 
hour  can  be  created,  at  least  four 
or  five  times  the  speed  of  any 
known    hurricane.       Model    air- 


planes, or  even  parts  of  full-sized 
machines,  can  be  hung  up  and 
their  action  in  the  air  recorded. 
Such  tremendous  winds  generate 
heat  of  hundreds  of  degrees,  and 
one  of  the  problems  has  been  to 
reduce  this  heat  without  reducing 
the  effectiveness  of  the  tunnel. 
It  has  been  solved. 

At  Wright  Field,  they  do  all 
sorts  of  things  with  air.  In  the 
course  of  tests  not  only  of  planes 
but  of  flyers,  they  heat  it,  cool 
it,  expand  it,  compress  it  in  num- 
erous ways.  I  heard  a  technician 
say  at  one  point,  'in  this  device, 
we  use  ordinary  atmospheric- 
type  air.'  It  was  evident  he 
thought  rather  poorly  of  it. 

Every  airplane  must  be  as 
strong,  in  each  part,  as  is  possible 
without  unwieldiness.  The  army 
rule  is  a  50-percent  margin  of 
safety:  if  the  maximum  stress 
theoretically  possible  at  any  one 
point  is  8,000  pounds,  the  army 
insists  upon  12,000.  Every  ma- 
chine known  to  modern  science 
is  used  to  test  the  strength  and 
durability  of  all  materials  but  to 
me  the  most  striking  was  also  the 
simplest.  To  test  a  wing,  for  in- 
stance, you  turn  the  plane  up- 
side down  and  pile  bags  of  shot 
on  the  wing  until  it  breaks  off. 
If  it  breaks  at  less  than  150  per- 
cent of  the  indicated  possible 
pressure,  it  is  too  weak.  If  it 
breaks    at   markedly    more    than 


34 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


1MB., 


'-,■■-■ 


mSh 


H9n 


the    stipulation,    it   is  needlessly 
strong  and  is  needlessly  sacrific- 
ing weight.     No  army  airplane  is 
put  into  production  until  a  corps 
of  busy  men  in  gray-green  fati- 
gues    have     taken     one     sample 
plane    and    have    ruined    it    with 
shot  bags.     At  the  other  end  of 
the   scale,   they     test     propellers 
which  are  so  delicately  balanced 
and  carefully  constructed  that  a 
mere  splash  of  paint  on  the  tip 
will   cause   destructive   vibration. 
Wright  Field  might  well  adopt 
as  its  own  the  motto  of  the  Sea 
Bees:   'The  difficult  we  do  right 
away;  the  impossible  takes  a  little 
longer.'  The     whole     history     of 
the   Field   is   a   record   of   things 
done  today  which  were  ruled  out 
as  fantastic     yesterday.     General 
Echols  has   made   a  little  list   of 
some     of     them:     the     internally 
braced   wing,    the    super-charger, 
engines     delivering     one     horse- 
power    per     pound     of     weight, 
planes     without     propellers     (jet 
propulsion),     remotely  controlled 
guns,   a    75-mm.      cannon     firing 
from  a  plane  without  shaking  it 
to  pieces,   double  sets  of  propel- 
lers  rotating   in    opposite    direc- 
tions to  overcome  torque,  radar, 
reversible        propellers       which, 
when  a  plane  is  landing,  push  the 
air  away  instead  of  pulling  it  in, 
and  thus  act  as  a  brake.  And  that 
is  only  the  beginning  of  the  list. 
I  saw  an  instrument  at  Wright 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


Field  which,  once  it  has  been 
properly  set  at  the  beginning  of 
a  mission,  tells  the  pilot  his  lati- 
tude and  longitude,  in  minutes 
and  seconds,  throughout  the 
flight.  The  only  thing  it  omits 
is  allowing  for  wind  drift,  and  I 
understand  that  the  pilots  are 
pretty  peevish  about  this.  'You 
mean  to  say  the  navigator  still 
has  to  figure  wind  drift?'  they 
ask  indignantly. 

I  saw  another  instrument 
which,  so  to  speak,  remains  right- 
side  up  continually  no  matter 
how  many  somersaults  the  plane 
may  turn.  This  solves  a  real 
problem:  flying  on  one  side  or 
upside  down,  without  knowing 
it,  is  a  genuine  hazard  in  bad 
weather.  Previous  artificial  hori- 
zons have  been  effective  only  up 
to  a  change  of  90  degrees,  which 
is  not  enough.  This  one  looks 
like  a  billiard  ball  whose  lower 
half  is  painted  black,  and  it  lives 
in  a  medium-sized  camera  with 
a  bulging  lens  in  front,  through 
which  the  'universal  position  in- 
dicator' looks  out  scornfully  at 
these  stupid  mortals  who  don't 
know  whether  they  are  right- 
side-up  or  upside-down.  It  al- 
ways knows. 

As  a  sort  of  second  cousin  to 
this  machine  there  is  one  used  in 
aerial  photography.  Here  is  an 
art  that  has  been  improved, 
largely    at    Wright   Field,    out   of 


35 


NS* 


SoftK 


Ml 


f% 


HI  mm 


,  > 


IPS 


H^H 

■ 


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qflntfggBfecrfli:  ;- * 


Xffl 

....... j 


all  countenance.  Aerial  cameras 
now  work  automatically  and  in 
groups  of  several.  They  will 
photograph  a  strip  reaching  side- 
ways from  horizon  to  horizon, 
and  forwards  over  a  distance 
of  hundreds  of  miles,  and  the 
successive  photographs  will  over- 
lap accurately.  All  done  while 
the  cameraman  sits  by  and  reads 
Thrilling  True  Ace  Love  Detec- 
tive Out  West  Magazine  or  has 
a  manicure.  There  is  only  one  de- 
fect: the  camera  is  fixed  to  the 
plane;  when  the  plane  tilts,  so 
does  the  picture.  So  they  have 
invented  a  device  which,  with  icy 
contempt  for  human  fallibility, 
records  on  each  exposed  nega- 
tive the  degree  of  variation  from 
the  horizontal  of  the  plane  at  that 
instant.  Then  they  invented  an- 
other device  by  which  the  finish- 
ed picture  is  brought  back  to  the 
true  level.  They  could  just  as 
well  use  a  machine  that  would 
keep  the  camera  level  no  matter 
what  the  plane  did;  the  other 
combination  is  easier  and  simp- 
ler. 

Not  the  least  interesting  spec- 
tacle at  Wright  Field  is  the  heli- 
copters, lined  up  haughtily  in  a 
shed  by  themselves.  The  army 
is  using  both  the  standard  Sikor- 
sky type  that  you  have  seen  in 
the  newsreels,  and  the  new  XR-I, 
with  rotors  revolving  in  opposite 
directions  at  the  tips  of  two  wing- 


like pylons.  The  cabin  of  the 
helicopter  is  made  entirely  of 
transparent  plexiglass,  including 
the  floor,  so  that  the  passenger 
can  look  down  between  his  own 
feet  at  a  great  deal  of  open  space. 
The  army  is  already  using  heli- 
copters for  many  military  pur- 
poses and  finding  them  of  tre- 
mendous value.  It  makes  no 
comment  on  possible  postwar 
uses,  but  I  gather  that  it  takes  a 
sour  view  of  some  of  the  enthusi- 
astic notions  of  civilians.  Even 
a  pilot  with  thousands  of  hours 
in  the  air  finds  it  hard  to  learn 
to  fly  a  helicopter  and  an  exact- 
ing job  to  do  so. 

Human  beings  were  never  in- 
tended to  dive  down  out  of  the 
blue  sky  at  700  miles  an  hour 
and  then  abruptly  swoop  upward 
again.  At  most,  they  were  in- 
tended to  swing  gently  from  one 
branch  of  a  tree  to  another, 
twenty  feet  away.  A  bombing 
dive  does  strange  and  sometimes 
disturbing  things  to  the  human 
mechanism;  and  the  army  has  to 
know  in  advance  just  what  they 
are  and  how  they  can  be  counter- 
acted, remembering  the  great 
variation  among  individuals.  This 
accounts  for  one  of  the  strangest, 
most  terrifying  spectacles  I  have 
ever  seen:  a  human  being  in  the 
'human   centrifuge.' 

The  scene  is  a  big  square  al- 
most entirely  filled  with  a  single 


36 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


BH3b 

M  m 


■  ^m 

HHEM 

%**-£  -  I   '.  I 


I      ■ 


piece  of  apparatus:  what  might 
be  one  long  transverse  section 
from  a  merry-go-round.  It  is 
supported  from  the  floor  in  the 
center,  and  two  tremendously 
long  arms  stretch  out  opposite 
each  other.  Attached  to  one  arm 
at  the  center  are  a  chair  and  an 
instrument  panel,  facing  toward 
one  of  the  ends.  At  that  end, 
swinging  freely  from  side  to  side 
is  a  small  open  cockpit,  also  with 
a  chair  and  an  instrument  panel. 

An  observer  sits  in  the  chair 
at  the  center  of  the  axis.  The 
'subject'  nonchalantly  climbs  in- 
to the  open  cockpit  at  the  far  end 
of  the  arm,  where  I  would  not 
change  places  with  him  for  quite 
a  lot  of  money.  All  spectators  are 
outside  the  door  looking  through 
a  heavy  glass  panel,  or  have 
mounted  to  a  precarious  catwalk 
near  the  ceiling,  out  of  range  if 
anything  goes  wrong.  You  hear 
the  question:  'Ready?'  and  the 
answer:  'Ready.'  A  button  is 
touched,  a  deep  whir  fills  the 
room,  and  the  whole  apparatus 
is  revolving  at  incredible  speed, 
faster  and  faster.  The  free- 
swinging  cockpit  is  perfectly 
horizontal,  now,  cleaving  the  air 
at  600  miles  an  hour.  The  sub- 
ject, with  his  calm,  sun-burned 
face,  flashes  past  me  again  and 
again.  He  is  facing  inward  of 
course,  so  that  his  feet  travel 
faster  than  his  head.  Now  the  ob- 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


server  in  the  middle  clicks  on  a 
light  which  appears  on  the  panel 
before  the  subject,  who  reaches 
to  a  switch,  in  spite  of  going  600 
miles  an  hour  and  clicks  it  off 
again,  to  show  that  he  is  still  con- 
scious. Another  light  is  turned, 
on — off,  and  another.  On  .  .  .  off 
On  ....  off.  On  ...  .  The  last 
light  stays  on.  The  subject  of  the 
experiment  is  unconscious.  Cen- 
trifugal force  has  pulled  some  of 
the  blood  out  of  his  brain — not 
all  of  it,  but  enough  so  that  the 
'powerhead',  as  the  scientist  in 
charge  prosaically  describes  it,  is 
lowered  and  consciousness  is  lost. 

This  is  not  merely  a  toy  to  test 
soldiers'  nerves  or  frighten  timid 
New  York  editors.  By  this  de- 
vice you  can  tell  just  what  speed 
of  curving  flight,  how  long  con- 
tinued, will  black  out  any  indivi- 
dual. That  fact  then  becomes 
part  of  his  record.  Oddly  enough, 
when  the  same  man  takes  that 
terrible  ride  several  times  in  suc- 
cession, he  blacks  out  under  less 
strain.  This  is  because  the  first 
time,  he  is  afraid;  his  blood  pres- 
sure is  higher  and  resists  the 
centrifuge  better.  As  he  becomes 
more  accustomed  to  it  he  is  more 
relaxed,  the  blood  drains  more 
rapidly,  and  he  faints  sooner. 

The  object  of  military  aviation 
is  to  destroy  the  enemy  and  all 
his  works.  It  is  also,  of  course,  to 
sacrifice  as  few  of  your  own  men 


37 


I     •   I 


1  ^ifis 


BR 


wasm 


as  possible,  and  tremendous  pains 
are  taken  to  achieve  this  latter 
end.  There  are  many  medical 
studies  which  have  shown  how 
to  minimize  the  strain  on  the  air- 
men, or  to  screen  out  those  who 
for  one  reason  or  another  are  un- 
able to  stand  the  gaff.  Flying 
suits  for  use  in  the  Arctic  are 
marvels  of  ingenuity,  embracing 
electrically  heated  garments,  bul- 
let-resisting armor,  Mae  Wests 
— automatic-inflation  lifebelts — 
and  emergency  oxygen  supplied 
for  use  during  enforced  para- 
chute jumps.  There  is  similar 
equipment  for  every  other  part 
of  the  world.  My  breath  was 
taken  by  the  amount  of  material 
an  airman  now  carries  when  he 
is  forced  to  abandon  his  plane. 
I  cannot  begin  to  enumerate  all 
the  items  he  carries  hung  about 
him,  but  they  include  a  tent,  a 
collapsible  rubber  boat  with  mast 
and  sail,  cooking  utensils,  a  ma- 
chine that  makes  salt  water  pot- 
able, shark-repellent  signaling 
flares  and  coloring  matter  for  the 
ocean  about  his  boat,  a  knife,  a 
pistol  and  a  book  on  how  to  sur- 
vive  in  all  types   of  wilderness. 

Some  war  inventions  will  have 
the  utmost  usefulness  in  peace- 
time application.  At  Wright 
Field,  a  remarkable  new  lighting 
system  for  airports  has  been  de- 
veloped which  in  bad  weather 
will  supplement    instrument    fly- 


ing for  the  all-important  last  50 
or  100  feet  of  descent.  Colored 
lights  are  arranged  in  a  row  on 
both  sides  of  the  runway,  parallel 
to  it,  and  extending  beyond  its 
end  for  a  considerable  distance. 
This  system  of  lights,  which 
works  equally  well  from  either 
end  of  the  runway,  tells  the  pilot 
exactly  what  to  do  at  every  sec- 
ond of  the  end  of  his  flight.  This 
American  invention  has  now 
been  adopted  by  all  other  coun- 
tries except  the  enemy  and  will 
undoubtedly  soon  be  worldwide. 

There  is  a  piece  of  rescue 
equipment  which  will  also  have 
important  peacetime  use.  Modi- 
fying a  successful  British  device, 
the  American  army  now  has  a 
power-driven  lifeboat  which  is 
carried  by  plane  and  dropped  in- 
to the  sea  near  survivors  of  any 
aerial  or  nautical  misfortune. 
This  boat  has  two  engines  gener- 
ating 10  horsepower,  and  also 
uses  sails.  It  has  a  range  of  1,- 
500  miles  and  can  carry  a  large 
number  of  adults.  It  is  dropped 
with  parachutes  from  the  plane, 
close  to  where  the  survivors  are 
in  the  sea  or  on  ordinary  life 
rafts.  When  it  strikes  the  water, 
a  smoke  bomb  is  set  off  to  indi- 
cate its  location.  At  the  same 
time,  ropes  150  yards  long  shoot 
out  at  right  angles  from  both 
sides  of  the  boat,  and  these  float 
on   the   surface   of   the   water   to 


38 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


help  in  rescue  work.  Each  boat 
carries  blood  plasma  and  other 
medical  equipment,  food,  cloth- 
ing, radio  and  signaling  appara- 
tus. Such  a  boat  can  be  dropped 
near  an  island  otherwise  inacces- 
sible, where  wreck  survivors  may 
be  living 

Everyone  is  aware  that  auto- 
matic gyroscopic  pilots  nowadays 
take  much  of  the  strain  out  of 
long-distance  flights;  but  even 
knowing  this,  I  was  not  prepared 
for  one  thing  that  I  saw.  Sitting 
meekly  in  a  back  corner  of  a 
laboratory,  like  Einstein  in  a 
high-school  mathematics  class, 
was  a  device  which  I  can  only 
describe  as  looking  like  three 
rather  large  and  rather  compli- 
cated cameras  clustered  together 
— the  Autopilot.  It  was  set  in  a 
dummy  plane,  with  miniature 
wings  and  tail.  As  I  stood  be- 
hind this  contraption  where  the 
pilot's  seat  should  be,  I  looked 
into  six  small  round  lighted  eyes, 
set  in  an  irregular  horizontal  line 
The  instrument  stared  at  me 
without  winking  and  I  did  my 
best  to  stare  back. 

Now  we  were,  theoretically,  in 
full  flight.  The  machine  had  been 
told,  in  a  language  of  its  own,  the 
course,  speed  and  altitude  desir- 
ed. Within  its  depths  there  was  a 
delicate  whirring.  Then  an  at- 
tendant stepped  forward  and  lay- 
ing hold  of  the  miniature  plane, 

NOVEMBER,  1944 


pushed  the  whole  nose  down  and 
to  the  left.  The  mechanism  glar- 
ed indignantly  at  me,  and  blinked 
violently  with  two  of  its  eyes.  In 
a  matter  of  seconds  blinking  con- 
tinuously, it  had  brought  the 
plane  up  and  to  the  right  until 
it  was  exactly  on  its  course  again 
— and  I  mean  exactly.  It  stopped 
blinking,  and  looked  at  me  re- 
proachfully once  more,  like  an 
old  clubman  when  the  waiter  has 
forgotten  to  bring  him  his  whis- 
key. 

The  attendant  came  forward 
again,  and  pulled  the  plane  up 
and  to  the  right.  Instantly  the 
blinking  started  and  before  I 
could  count  five,  the  damage  to 
the  course  had  been  counteract- 
ed. The  process  was  repeated 
with  every  conceivable  combina- 
tion of  trouble.  The  machine 
solved  all  problems  without  ever 
taking  its  eyes  off  of  me.  I 
might  mention  that  it  was  at  the 
same  time  keeping  the  plane's 
automatic  bomb-sight  in  full  op- 
eration so  that  at  any  second, 
bombs  could  be  released  with  a 
certainty  that  they  would  find 
their  target. 

It  was  my  nerve  that  broke 
first,  and  I  turned  away  with  a 
sick  feeling  that  I  was  looking  at 
the  future  and  that  it  did  not 
like  me.  Once  again,  as  so  often 
before,  I  thought  how  much  bet- 
ter we  build  for  destruction  than 


39 


ell    fBBBTIffiMftmz 


for  peace,  how  much  better  are 
our  technicians  than  our  politi- 
cians, what  a  world  this  would 
be  if  the  sort  of  genius  that  cre- 
ates machines  like  this,  the  geni- 


us so  amazingly  exemplified  at 
Wright  Field,  could  also  teach 
human  beings  to  live  amicably 
together. 

— Bruce  Bliven 


Technology  Marches  On! 

ic  TODAY  the  radio-electronics  industry  is  turning  out  specialized  types  of 
war  equipment  at  the  rate  of  approximately  $3.2  billions  a  year — a  greater 
volume  of  output  than  that  of  the  entire  automobile  industry  in  1939.  The  pre- 
sent war  has  caused  acceleration  of  research  and  development  work  in  radio 
and  the  ultrahigh  frequencies  ...  It  is  still  too  early  to  foretell  what  revolution- 
ary peacetime  applications  may  result  from  these  scientific  advances. 

— Electrical  West 

if  IN  WORLD  WAR  I  a  division  used  4,400  horses  and  153  motor  vehicles 
of  about  3,500  total  mechanized  horsepower,  so  that  the  division  of  World 
War  I  had  a  total  of  about  8,000  available  horsepower.  Today  that  same  division 
has  about  2,700  vehicles  ranging  in  size  from  the  motor  cycle  to  the  heavy  tank, 
with  a  total  installed  capacity  of  about  450,000  horsepower. 

ic  NEW  YORK,  Oct.  7. — A  mysterious  yellow  substance,  present  as  an  im- 
purity in  a  sodium  salt  of  penicillin,  has  been  found  to  exert  a  selective  killing 
effect  on  mouse  cancer  cells  grown  in  test  tubes,  it  is  reported  in  the  current 
issue  of  Science.  Normal  tissue  cells,  grown  in  the  same  test  tubes,  were  left 
unharmed,  the  investigation  showed. 

The  experiments  were  carried  out  by  Dr.  Margaret  Reed  Lewis,  noted  can- 
cer research  worker  of  the  Wistar  Institute  of  Anatomy  and  Biology,  Phila- 
delphia, and  the  department  of  embryology,  Carnegie  Institution  of  Washing- 
ton. The  investigations  showed  that  a  highly  purified  colorless  preparation 
of  penicillin  has  no  damaging  effect  on  either  cancer  or  normal  cells.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  was  observed  that  a  less  purified,  yellow  sodium  salt  of 
penicillin  damaged  the  cancer  cells  without  harming  the  normal  ones. 

'From  our  studies  we  surmise,'  Dr.  Lewis  reports,  'that  the  factor  present 
in  the  less  purified  sodium  salt  of  penicillin  which  damaged  the  sarcoma 
(cancer)  cells  is  lost  in  the  highly  purified  product.' 

Last  March,  Ivor  Cornman,  now  a  corporal  in  the  army,  reported  in  Science 
that  penicillin  destroyed  cancer  cells  raised  in  tubes  along  with  normal  cells, 
and  that  the  normal  cells  remained  unharmed.  — New  York  Times 


ir  BEFORE  THE  WAR  Canada's  radio  and  electrical  industry  turned  out 
goods  at  the  rate  of  about  $16,000,000  a  year.  Switching  to  war  materials 
the  output  for  1940  was  $1,000,000.  The  next  year  the  industry  had  struck 
its  stride  and  production  jumped  to  $60,000,000.  In  1943  it  stood  at  $136,000,000 
Expectations  are  that  the  1945  war  production  will  be  about  half  of  this  year's 
or  $100,000,000. 

Scattered  across  the  Dominion  these  plants  and  subcontractors  are  not  only 
turning  out  100  different  types  of  signals  equipment  for  the  Canadian  forces, 
but  also  are  sending  supplies  to  the  United  Kingdom,  Russia,  China,  India, 
Africa,  New  Zealand,  Australia,  and  United  States.  — Associated  Press 


40 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


'■•:■"' 


&*i 


No  Shrink,  i  Shine,  No  Slip 


Every  day  research  chemists  are  making  new  discoveries  which 
will  make  for  a  more  abundant  life  for  all  of  us;  the  following 
article  demonstrates  the  skill  with  which  they  probe  into  micro- 
scopic mysteries  to  enhance  our  living  comforts. 


CLIMATIC  influences  of  this 
global  war  mean  many  things 
to  many  soldiers.  To  the  jungle 
fighter,  they  mean  ever  present 
dampness  and  insects  and  heat;  to 
the  desert  warrior,  blistering  sand 
and  scanty  water  rations.  The 
arctic  soldier  sees  them  as  a  con- 
tinuing fight  against  fog,  snow, 
and  sub-zero  temperatures.  But 
wherever  he  may  be,  the  man 
with  the  gun  and  knife  will  agree 
that  the  textiles  which  clothe, 
shelter  and  otherwise  serve  him 
are  a  close  second  to  his  chow. 

And  because  they  are  of  top 
rank  importance,  Monsanto  re- 
search and  development  chemists 
began  many  months  ago  to  ferret 
out  processes  to  make  textiles 
more  durable,  more  serviceable, 
and  more  economical.  Success 
has  crowned  their  efforts.  Their 
new  fabric-treating  develop- 
ments, recently  announced,  not 
only  fill  many  military  require- 
ments, but  are  freighted  with 
such  terrific  peacetime  poten- 
tialities  that   a   revolution   looms 


This   article  has  been  reprinted   from 
the  September  issue  of  MONSANTO. 


in  the  postwar  textile  world. 

To  interpret  and  be  brief,  the 
story  goes  like  this:  Fill  a  hose 
with  flexible  plastic,  giving  it 
added  strength  and  shape-reten- 
tive power;  apply  finely  ground 
corn  meal  to  the  outer  dimen- 
sions of  an  eel,  making  it  less 
slippery  and  at  the  same  time 
supplying  a  protective  coating — 
and  there,  apart  from  the  neces- 
sary chemical  know-how,  you 
have  the  basis  of  this  probable  re- 
volution. The  domestic  phase  of 
this  revolution  must  await  vic- 
tory, plus  such  time  as  is  needed 
to  restore  domestic  production. 
But  it  is  on  the  way. 

Its  most  vital  ingredient  is 
know-how.  Anyone  can  squirt 
a  hose  full  of  plastic  or  roll  an  eel 
in  corn  meal,  but  something  more 
is  needed  to  fill  or  coat  a  tiny 
fiber,  the  springboard  from  which 
is  projected  virtually  shrink- 
proof  woollens,  fabrics  that 
bounce  back  into  unmarred 
smoothness  after  being  wadded 
into  a  ball,  suits  that  hold  their 
creases  after  being  drenched  in  a 
spring  shower,  sheer  stockings 
that    resist    runs,    shineless    blue 


NOVEMBER,   1944 


41 


HBnrW^ 


■  ■ 

■  ■  1 1 


serge  trousers,  seams  less  likely 
to  rip,  textiles  with  finer  sheen, 
and  cottons  that  promote  comfort 
while  excluding  rain. 

Monsanto's  new  Reslooming 
process,  which  discourages  muss 
and  wrinkles,  is  comparable  to 
the  plastic-filled  hose;  the  newly 
discovered  Sytons,  which  make 
for  fewer  stocking  runs  and 
stronger  seams  and  finer  sheen, 
impart  to  threads  and  fibers  the 
same  characteristics  as  corn  meal 
does  to  once-slippery  eels.  Treat- 
ment of  cotton  to  make  it  water- 
repellent,  as  in  a  third  newly 
developed  Monsanto  process,  re- 
quires no  analogy.  It  merely  in- 
volves coating  cotton  fibres  with 
a  plastic,  and  subsequent  heat 
treatment. 

Resloomed  suits  will  hold  their 
press,  Resloomed  blankets  will 
refuse  to  shrink  when  laundered 
with  cotton  garments,  and  all 
Resloomed  articles  will  be 
stronger  and  more  durable  be- 
cause their  fibres  will — precisely 
like  the  hose — be  brimful  of  flex- 
ible plastic. 

This  will  be  done  in  the  mills. 
After  being  knitted  or  woven, 
tomorrow's  textiles  will  be  pass- 
ed through  a  water  solution  of  a 
special  melamine  compound,  then 
cured  for  several  minutes  at  275 
degrees  Fahrenheit.  Only  minor 
changes  in  present  production 
methods  will  be  required. 


While  Reslooming  gets  to  the 
heart  of  the  fibres,  Syton  treat- 
ment involves  an  external  coat 
of  slip-resisting,  strength-increas- 
ing silicon  compound.  It  is  like 
the  corn  meal  on  the  eel.  Tech- 
nically, the  coating  is  identified 
as  fine  colloidal  dispersions  of 
polymerized  silica  or  quartz; 
more  understandably,  it  consists 
of  highly  purified  submicroscopic 
particles  of  quartz  dispersed  in 
water. 

The  individual  fibers  of  post- 
war fabrics  will  be  given  Syton 
protection  either  in  the  mills  or 
in  the  home  through  immersion, 
spraying  or  sponging.  Each 
thread  will  be  less  likely  to  be- 
come divorced  from  its  compan- 
ion units;  therefore,  a  snagged 
stocking  will  be  less  apt  to  run, 
a  vital  seam  less  likely  to  rip, 
and  an  undergarment  less  prone 
to  creep  out  of  place. 

Under  the  microscope,  a  fiber 
somewhat  resembles  a  cactus 
with  thousands  of  projecting 
spines.  These  projections  are  in 
reality  minute  scales,  which  are 
lost  with  wear.  It  is  then  that 
blue  serge  trousers  become  shiny. 
Syton  promises  to  hold  them  in 
place;  Syton,  moreover,  will  coat 
already  shiny  fibers  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  effectively  erase 
the  radiance. 

Remarkable  indeed  is  the  fact 
that  all  of  these  new  qualities  are 


42 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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achieved  by  improving  the  natur- 
al advantages  of  wool,  cotton,  and 
other  long-familiar  textile  fibers. 
The  original  and  desirable  quali- 
ties of  the  basic  textiles  are  un- 
impaired. After  being  Resloom- 
ed,  for  example,  wool  retains  all 
the  softness,  warmth,  natural 
resilience  and  excellent  wearing 
qualities  which  make  for  excel- 
lence. 


Says  Dr.  Donald  H.  Powers, 
director  of  the  textile  research 
and  development:  '  .  .  .  We  are 
accelerating  the  already-speedy 
development  of  chemical  and  in- 
dustrial progress  in  America  .  .  . 
with  the  realization  we  are  con- 
tributing to  an  economy  of  abun- 
dance rather  than  to  an  economy 
of  scarcity.' 


The  Chemist  Improves  on  Mother  Nature 


*  A  NEW  FIBER-REINFORCED  plastic  with  ten  times  the  impact  resist- 
ance of  ordinary  plastics  and  having  hitherto  unattainable  strength  in  propor- 
tion to  weight,  is  now  being  used  in  building  American  planes,  James  Slayter, 
director  of  research  of  Owens-Corning  Fiberglas  Corporation,  told  the  American 
Institute  of  Mining  and  Metallurgical  Engineers  recently. 

Experimental  samples  have  been  produced  with  tensile  strength  of  more  than 
80,000  pounds  per  square  inch,  he  said.  The  impact  strength  of  ordinary  plastics 
is  about  two  foot  pounds  on  a  standard  test,  he  added,  while  the  new  material 
has  shown  impact  resistance  of  more  than  twenty  foot  pounds. 

Mr.  Slayter  said  the  glass-reinforced  material  could  be  molded  into  aircraft 
structual  parts  with  low  pressures  without  use  of  expensive  molds,  reducing 
both  cost  and  man-hours  required. 


I 


•k  RUBBER  DIRECTOR  Bradley  Dewey  in  liquidating  his  own  bureau  stated 
that  the  synthetic  rubber  production  of  the  United  States  is  at  the  rate  of 
about  836  thousand  tons  a  year.  This  is  about  some  250  thousand  tons  more 
than  the  country's  consumption  of  natural  rubber  before  the  war.  Says  Dewey: 
'I  cannot  see  any  capitalist  planting  rubber  trees  and  waiting  seven  years  for 
them  to  grow — against  a  future  of  unknown  labour  costs — in  competition  with 
chemists  who  have  won  every  battle  they  ever  entered  between  synthetics  and 
nature.'  — Associated  Press 


*  ANOTHER  DRUG  FROM  MOLD  has  been  isolated  and  named  Clavacin 
and  it  might  prove  to  be  more  useful  than  penicillin  for  certain  types  of  di- 
seases. 

This  new  drug  kills  all  bacteria  which  are  killed  by  penicillin  and  some  others 
which  were  unaffected  by  the  latter  drug.  Clavacin  is  derived  from  a  common 
mold,  aspergillus  clavatus,  which  was  first  isolated  from  manure. 

Clavacin  has  also  proven  successful  in  control  of  certain  plant  diseases,  al- 
though its  toxic  properties  when  injected  into  animals  have  not  been  deter- 
mined  up  to  now. 

It  is  possible  that  clavacin,  like  penicillin,  can  be  used  against  baGterial  in- 
fection in  human  beings,  although  more  has  yet  to  be  ascertained  of  its  proper- 
ties before  this  can  safely  be  undertaken. 

— Professor  H.  W.  Anderson,  University  of  Illinois 


NOVEMBER,  1944 


43 


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Technology  and  Free  Enterprise 


Our  North  American  standard  of  living  has  been  brought  about 
by  the  application  of  technology  to  our  bountiful  natural  re- 
sources, not  through  the  efforts  of  business — 'free'  or  'private.' 
It  has  been  accomplished  IN  SPITE  of  'free  enterprise'  rather 
than  BECAUSE  of  it. 


WHILE  thousands  of  Ameri- 
cans and  Canadians  have 
been  maimed  and  killed  in  battle 
the  business  corporations  of  this 
Continent  have  rolled  up  the  big- 
gest profits  in  history.  This  is 
efficiency.  This  is  the  gauge  by 
which  the  'free  enterprise'  sys- 
tem is  measured,  and  all  of  us 
must  admire  the  astuteness  of 
this  accomplishment. 

From  the  moral  standpoint 
there  is  also  bitter  injustice  in  it 
— an  injustice  that  cannot  help 
but  rankle  in  the  breast  of  every 
fighting  man  who  has  suffered 
poverty  in  the  land  for  which  he 
is  now  fighting.  In  order  for  the 
few  to  'succeed'  there  must  be 
the  many  who  'fail,'  the  many 
who  suffer. 

We  refer  to  this  as  a  result,  not 
as  a  method  of  approach  to  the 
problem.  We  are  herein  con- 
cerned with  the  efficiency  of  'free 
enterprise'  in  its  messy  scramble 
for  personal  profit — in  the  face  of 
a  critical  national  condition,  a 
dying  epoch,  and  the  birth  of  a 
vast  new   social  panorama. 

We  can  remember  that  after 
the  last    war    the    people    were 


promised  by  the  collective  leader- 
ship of  the  Price  System  that 
there  would  be  no  profits  in  the 
next  war.  We  can  remember  that 
these  stewards  of  the  national 
welfare  permitted  the  Great  De- 
pression. We  remember  the  re- 
lief lines,  the  apple  selling,  the 
young  men  on  freight  trains. 

Today,  we  are  faced  with  the 
spectacle  of  Eric  Johnston, 
spokesman  for  the  U.  S.  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce,  and  others, 
telling  the  public  that  it  was  'free 
enterprise'  which  produced  the 
weapons  of  war. 

This  Continent  has  always  had 
'free  enterprise.'  The  settlers  on 
the  banks  of  the  James  River  in 
1610  had  untrammelled  'free  en- 
terprise.' They  made  their  crude 
equipment  by  hand  and  they 
toiled  in  the  sweat  of  their  brows 
to  conquer  the  wilderness.  Their 
descendants  did  likewise.  Human 
toil  and  hand  tools,  poverty,  long 
hours,  'free  enterprise.'  Their 
methods  of  production  were  basi- 
cally the  same  as  they  had  been 
for  centuries.  There  was  no  per- 
ceptible change  in  their  methods 
of  work,  production,   and  stand- 


44 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


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ards  of  living  for  at  least  200 
years. 

Then  modern  technology  began 
with  the  introduction  of  the 
steam  engine.  The  change  which 
finally  came  was  not  the  outcome 
of  the  'free  enterprise'  system.  It 
was  the  outcome  of  technology. 

Other  places  have  had  'free  en- 
terprise' for  centuries,  China  for 
instance.      Yet    China    is     not     a 


great  producer  with  a  high 
standard  of  living.  Russia,  by 
contrast,  has  no  'free  enterprise' 
in  the  sense  of  business  anarchy, 
yet  Russia  has  technology  and  so 
it  is  a  producer.  In  America 
where  we  have  both  'free  enter- 
prise' and  technology,  it  is  the 
technology  which  produces  in 
spite  of  the  'free  enterprise.' 

— CHQ,  Technocracy  Inc. 


Postwar  Planners  Please  Note! 


*  THE  PEACETIME  PATTERN  of  prospective  employment  still  remains 
unclear. 

Government  employment  experts  figure  that  4,700,000  jobs  must  be  found 
after  demobilization,  a  total  which  represents  an  increase  of  nearly  a 
million  jobs  compared  with  the  1929  peak  year  of  employment  when  3,700,000 
Canadians  were  'at  work.'  It  also  takes  into  account  an  increase  in  population 
of  about  1,500,000  in  the  interim,  and  allows  for  an  estimated  200,000  men  re- 
maining in  the  armed  forces. 

The  serious  side  of  the  picture  is  found  in  a  recent  authoritative  estimate 
which  shows  that  in  the  neighborhood  of  80  percent  of  the  export  business 
that  Canada  is  now  doing  belongs  in  the  temporary  classification  of  abnormal 
wartime  trade,  with  approximately  20  percent  in  the  category  of  normal,  or 
permanent  trade. 

This  wartime  trade  has  provided  work  for  1,300,000  men  and  women.  From 
these  figures  it  is  obvious  that  Canada  faces  a  tremendous  rebuilding  and  re- 
alignment of  her  export  trade  if  employment  is  to  be  found  for  the  1,300,000 
Canadians  presently  engaged  in  the  production  of  80  percent  of  the  country's 
export  wartime  trade.  A  further  complication  in  the  readjustment,  centres 
in  the  750,000  personnel  of  the  armed  forces  after  discharge.  We  thus  have 
over  2,000,000  men  and  women  whose  living  has  been  dependent  on  war  and 
war  work  for  whom  the  nation  must  find  peace-time  work. 

— Vancouver  News-Herald 

if  NEW  YORK,  Sept.  7. — Prices  broke  sharply  in  security  and  commodity  mar- 
kets on  Wednesday  coincident  with  the  first  official  disclosure  that  American 
forces  had  crossed  the  Moselle  River. 

On  the  stock  exchange  many  leading  industrial  and  rail  issues  fell  $1  to  $3  a 
share  in  one  of  the  steepest  declines  of  the  last  year.  Speculative  bonds  sold  off 
with  shares. 

Chicago  wheat  closed  1  1-4  to  5  cents  a  bushel  lower  and  rye  was  down  4  1-4 
to  5  cents.  New  York  cotton  futures  dropped  30  to  40  cents  a  bale. 

Wall  Street  sources  attributed  heavy  selling  in  the  stock  market  to  concern 
over  the  present  status  of  reconversion  plans,  with  some  fearing  severe  slump 
in  business  should  Germany  be  crushed  in  the  immediate  future. 

— Associated  Press 


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NOVEMBER,  1944 


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'The  Rest  of  Your  Life' 


A  review  of  the  book  which  discusses  such  questions  as:  What 
kind  of  world  will  the  G.I.  Joes  find  when  they  come  inarching 
home?  What  is  going  to  be  done  with  the  vast  industrial  plant 
which  is  now  owned  by  the  Government? 


THIS  is  at  once  a  stimulating 
and  an  exasperating  book. 
Author  Leo  Cherne — Executive 
Secretary  of  the  Research  Insti- 
tute of  America — has  assembled 
much  thought  provoking  materi- 
al on  the  problems  we  shall  face 
after  the  war,  but  he  veers  vague- 
ly away  from  any  concrete  solu- 
tion to  those  problems.  His  an- 
alysis points  clearly  to  the  fact 
that  tremendous  changes  have 
been  brought  about  which  will 
make  it  impossible  to  return  to 
our  prewar  method  of  social  exis- 
tence; instead  of  frankly  recog- 
nizing that  the  entire  Price  Sys- 
tem has  been  doomed  by  the  im- 
pact of  technology,  he  invokes 
the  spirit  of  'capitalism  on  the 
march.' 

But  the  case  he  builds  up) — his 
appraisal  of  our  economic  dilem- 
ma— is  too  strong  to  be  dimmed 
out  by  any  wishful  mumbo-jum- 
bo.  When  we  have  finished  the 
book,  a  clear  picture  still  remains 
of  America   on   the   threshold   of 


THE  REST  OF  YOUR  LIFE  by  Leo 
Cherne  is  published  by  Doubleday, 
Doran  and  Company,  Inc.  Canadian 
Price:   $3.75. 


big  things,  facing  simultaneously 
mighty  opportunity  or  terrible 
disaster. 

The  real  value  of  The  Rest  of 
Your  Life,  therefore,  lies  in 
the  problems  it  poses — prob- 
lems to  which  increasing  num- 
bers of  Americans  and  Canadians 
are  demanding  an  answer.  It  dis- 
cusses such  vast  questions  as: 
What  kind  of  world  will  the  G.I. 
Joes  find  when  they  come  march- 
ing home?  What  is  going  to  be 
done  with  the  huge  industrial 
plant  which  is  now  owned  by  the 
government?  How  will  the  ad- 
vance of  technology  alter  the 
'American  way  of  life?' 

Author  Cherne  estimates  that 
as  many  as  one  million  men  may 
be  released  from  the  U.S.  Army 
before  the  new  year  gets  rolling — 
if  the  war  with  Germany  is  over 
before  the  end  of  1944.  He  figures 
that  by  the  fall  of  1945 — even  if 
the  war  against  Japan  is  in  its 
most  intensive  phase — four  mil- 
lion will  have  doffed  their  uni- 
forms. 

In  a  pungent  paragraph  Cherne 
makes  this  observation:  "There 
will  be  no  more  certain  political 


46 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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demise  for  those  in  the  saddle 
than  to  demobilize  the  Army  of 
the  United  States  only  to  mobi- 
lize its  members  into  the  army  of 
the  unemployed.  The  political 
and  economic  leaders  have  put 
themselves  on  the  spot  with  their 
luscious  promises  and  lavish 
visions  of  a  brave  old  world.  De- 
mobilization day  is  the  delivery 
date.' 

To  our  political  and  economic 
leaders  Cherne  offers  this  dis- 
quieting prediction:  'If  after  the 
war,  we  do  no  better  than  we 
did  in  our  best  peacetime  year, 
the  more  conservative  estimates 
insist  that  between  ten  and  fif- 
teen million  Americans  will  be 
without  jobs.' 

According  to  Cherne's  calcula- 
tions this  is  what  we  must  do  to 
bring  full  employment  to  Ameri- 
ca after  the  war: 

Eat  twice  as  much  food  as  we 
did  in  1940;  smoke  three  cigar- 
ettes for  every  two;  build  two 
and  a  half  times  as  many  homes; 
heat  and  light  our  homes  twice 
as  much;  buy  a  new  car  twice  as 
often;  use  30  percent  more  gaso- 
line; buy  another  suit  or  dress 
for  every  one  we  used  to  buy; 
order  three  pieces  of  furniture 
for  every  two  we  bought  in  1940; 
buy  a  radio,  piano,  phonograph, 
and  organ  twice  as  often  as  we 
did;  and  even  death  must  become 
more  extravagant — we  must  un- 


veil three  tombstones  for  every 
two  we  laid  in  1940. 

We  must  increase  all  types  of 
production  to  two-thirds  more 
than  in  1940,  and  the  government 
must  build  27  percent  more  than 
it  did  that  year  and  double  its 
peacetime  services. 

Now  is  the  time  for  the  $64.00 
question!  How  can  all  this  be 
done  under  a  Price  System  meth- 
od of  production  and  distribu- 
tion? Under  the  Price  System 
the  more  we  can  produce,  the 
less  we  can  consume.  The  tech- 
nology which  makes  it  possible 
to  produce  more,  cuts  down  on 
total  purchasing  power  when  it 
reduces  total  man-hours. 

The  knowledge  that  the  Ameri- 
can nation  after  the  war  will 
have  all  the  physical  facilities 
necessary  to  provide  'one  and  a 
half  times  as  much  goods  as  it 
ever  bought  in  the  best  peace- 
time year'  is  going  to  make  un- 
employment and  poverty  even 
harder  to  take  than  it  was  in  the 
'dirty  thirties.' 

Here  are  samples  of  our  spec- 
tacular increases:  We  are  turning 
out  seven  and  a  half  times  as 
much  aluminum  as  we  did  before 
the  war;  our  output  of  magnesi- 
um has  stepped  up  a  hundred 
times;  at  war's  end  one  aircraft 
plant  alone  will  be  constructing 
twice  as  many  planes  in  one  year 
as   the   whole   nation    did   in   the 


NOVEMBER.  1944 


47 


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two  generations  since  Kitty 
Hawk.  (Brookings  Institute, 
please  note!) 

Who  is  responsible  for  this  tre- 
mendous acceleration  of  produc- 
tion capacity?  In  just  two  years 
after  the  Fall  of  France  in  1940 
the  federal  government  put  more 
money  into  building  new  plants 
than  private  enterprise  did  from 
1929  to  1940.  In  less  than  two 
years  the  government  acquired 
almost  one  quarter  of  the  indus- 
trial machinery  and  manufactur- 
ing capacity  of  the  entire  nation. 
'In  little  more  than  twenty-four 
months  the  sovereign  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  emerg- 
ed as  the  leading  borrower  and 
lender  of  money,  the  greatest 
buyer  of  goods,  the  most  gigan- 
tic going  business  concern  in  all 
of  the  world's  history  ....  In 
Uncle  Sam's  hands  are  eighteen 
billion  dollars'  worth  of  produc- 
tive plant  and  fifty  billion  dollars' 
worth   of  available  merchandise.' 

What  are  we  going  to  do  with 
it  all?  Cherne  says  that  the  de- 
mand after  the  war  will  be  that 
the  government  start  selling — 
and  fast.  But  to  whom?  'If  pri- 
vate enterprise  were  willing  and 
able  to  buy,  it  could  liquidate 
these  government  holdings  and 
end  its  problems  ....  But  busi- 
nessmen are  already  worried 
about  what  they  are  going  to  do 
with    their    own    facilities    which 


have  undergone  some  expansion.' 
There  it  stands — a  huge  question 
mark — a  'vast  industrial  machine 
that  private  enterprise  refused 
or  was  unable  to  build  in  war- 
time and  will  be  reluctant  to  buy 
in  peacetime.' 

In  words  that  will  strike  res- 
ponsive chords  in  Technocrats 
everywhere  Cherne  comes  exas- 
peratingly  close  to  clenching  the 
crux  between  his  teeth: 

'The  industrial  revolution,  of 
course,  marked  the  great  turning 
point  in  the  history  of  the  mod- 
ern world.  It  altered  our  social, 
political,  and  economic  environ- 
ment so  radically  that  one  hund- 
red and  fifty  years  later  we  still 
have  not  found  solutions  to  the 
problems  it  brought.  Today  we 
stand  on  the  brink  of  new  change. 
Modern  physics  and  chemistry 
are  shifting  the  course  of  the  in- 
dustrial revolution,  promising  in 
a  generation  a  greater  rise  in  the 
standard  of  living  than  perhaps 
all  the  past  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  have  accomplished.  .  .  .  Just 
as  it  took  years  to  realize  the 
potentialities  of  the  machines  in- 
troduced by  the  industrial  revo- 
lution, so  has  there  been  a  lag  of 
some  fifty  years  and  more  be- 
tween the  new  scientific  revolu- 
tion and  its  fruits.  Under  the 
impetus  of  World  War  II,  how- 
ever, we  are  approaching  the 
time  when   the   full   impact  will 


48 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■  ■  i 

■■ 

mm 
I 


be  felt  in  our  everyday  lives.' 

Before  going  off  the  deep  end 
and  drowning  in  a  sea  of  vague 
generalities,  Cherne  issues  this 
challenge  to  the  people  of  Ameri- 
ca: 

'The  promise  of  the  new  age  of 
science  is  basic:  an  economy  of 
abundance  and  more  leisure  than 
the  world  has  ever  been  able  to 
offer  in  the  past.  The  promise 
is  that  we  will  be  able  to  turn 
out  enough  of  everything  to  give 
a  high  standard  of  living  for 
everybody  with  only  a  few  hours 
of  work  a  day.  That's  the  pro- 
mise. Many  of  the  heartaches, 
most  of  the  anguish  of  modern 
society,  flow  from  promises  that 
are  real  enough  measured  against 
non-delivery  that  is  equally  real. 
'The  war  will  have  catalyzed 
the  power   of    the    machine.      It 


will  have  exaggerated  our  ex- 
pectations from  it.  The  war  will 
have  spurred  the  earth  and  ele- 
ments, the  laboratory,  the  field, 
factory,  and  mine,  to  disgorge 
more  of  their  treasures.  But  the 
war  will  also  have  brought  us 
closer  to  the  crucial  question  of 
whether  man  can  handle  the  en- 
ormous forces  he  thus  sets  into 
motion.' 

When  you  go  so  far,  Mr. 
Cherne,  surely  you  can  see  that 
the  entire  Price  System  becomes 
inoperable  when  confronted  with 
abundance. 

The  Rest  of  Your  Life  poses 
the  basic  problem  of  our  time 
with  the  enigma:  'How  can  we  be 
both  peaceful  and  prosperous?' 

Technocracy  has   the  answer. 
— Donald  Bruce 


A  Mansion  Rides  the  Skies/ 


-k  THIS  YEAR  the  U.S.  Navy's  newest  cargo  flying  boat,  the  Mars,  which  is 
the  largest  plane  in  the  world,  completed  its  maiden  flight  on  a  war  mission 
to  Brazil,  Trinidad,  and  Bermuda.  During  part  of  this  flight  it  carried  a  load 
of  35,000  pounds  of  war  materials,  and  incidentally  set  up  new  records  for 
cargo  transportation  and  over-the-water  flight. 

The  craft  covered  8,972  miles  in  55  hours  31  minutes  flying  time,  giving 
an  average  speed  of  161  miles  per  hour  for  the  entire  time  it  was  in  the  air, 
while  on  some  hops  it  averaged  177  miles  per  hour. 

This  maiden  war  trip  of  the  Mars  included  a  4,375-mile  hop  over  the  Atlantic 
from  the  Naval  Air  Station  at  Patuxent,  Maryland,  to  Natal,  a  record  non- 
stop cargo  flight,  while  carrying  13,000  pounds  of  mail.  The  trip  was  accomp- 
lished in  28  hours  25  minutes  and  averaged  152  miles  an  hour,  which  set  up 
another  world's  record. 

At  the  take-off  from  Patuxent,  and  including  the  72,000-pound  weight  of 
the  empty  plane,  it  set  up  a  record  for  lifting  the  heaviest  load  ever  raised 
by  a  plane  -  148,500  pounds  gross. 

The  Mars  is  a  two-deck  hull  job,  which  may  be  compared  with  the^  capacity 
of  a  fifteen-roomed  house.  It  has  a  wing-span  of  200  feet,  while  its  engines 
deliver  2,200  horse-power  each.  It  is  more  than  twice  the  weight  of  a  Flying 
Fortress. 


NOVEMBER,   1944 


49 


An  Open  Letter  to  Labor 


A  recent  Government  statement  that  at  least  300,000  workers 
will  be  laid  off  'gradually  over  a  period  of  two  months'  focuses 
attention  on  labor's  forthcoming  predicament.  This  Open 
Letter  to  Labor  is  reprinted  in  response  to  numerous  requests. 

'"1"^  HIS  first  total  war  in  world  history  is  taking  another  turn.     It  appears 
•*-      that  this  turn  is  for  the  better,  and  we  are  all  glad  of  it.     Every  family 
with  a  representative  in  the  Armed  Forces  is  eagerly  awaiting    the    day    of 
final  Victory. 

With  the  approaching  doom  of  the  enemy  on  the  fighting  front  we  must  ex- 
pect retrenchment  in  industry  on  the  home  front.  Today  we  are  being  forced  to 
face  the  'beginning  of  the  end'  and  a  certain  number  of  employees  are  being 
released  from  war  industries  in  this  country. 

Technocracy  has  no  desire  to  raise  unnecessary  anxiety  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  are  laid  off,  or  those  who  at  the  moment  remain.  But  there  are  certain 
aspects  of  importance  that  we  feel  should  be  given  your  careful  attention. 

Among  these  is  the  question  of  future  security  for  labor  —  and  all  citizens 
of  North  America  —  with  special  reference  to  the  immediate  postwar  period, 
which  may  not  be  long  delayed.  For  years  before  the  present  war  Technocracy 
had  pointed  out  the  cold,  hard  fact  that  unemployment,  due  to  the  increasing 
use  and  efficiency  of  machines,  had  become  a  national  insoluble  problem  under 
existing  methods  of  social  operation.  Do  you  remember  the  bread  lines,  the  re- 
lief rolls,  and  the  freight  trains?  So,  too,  does  Technocracy. 

This  war  has  forced  business  to  install  more  and  more  machinery  owing  to 
the  shortage  of  manpower.  After  the  war  the  problem  of  jobs  will  assume  an 
even  greater  importance  in  our  minds  —  and  stomachs  —  than  before.  What 
is  the  answer?  Have  you  heard  of  any  government  program  that  will  guarantee 
you  economic  security  after  this  emergency  is  over?  If  you  have,  you  are  one 
up  to  Technocracy.  All  we  have  heard  are  the  cries  for  the  preservation  of  'free 
enterprise'  —  the  freedom  to  chisel,  the  freedom  to  profit,  the  freedom  to  main- 
tain artificial  scarcity,  the  freedom  to  operate  for  private  benefit  against  the 
public  welfare,  the  freedom  to  have  poverty,  slums,  crime,  waste,  and  malnu- 
trition, the  freedom  to  starve. 

The  present  small  layoff  is  but  a  glimpse  of  what  is  to  come.  When  the  boys 
return  from  overseas  it  will  be  that  much  worse.  We  must  face  this  problem 
in  the  light  of  all  the  known  facts.  We  can  win  the  war  and  yet  lose  the  peace 
if  a  fascist  control  attempts  to  keep  production  down  and  scarcity  the  order 
of  the  day. 

Technocracy  has  but  one  question  to  ask  of  you:— 'What  are  YOU  going  to 
do  about  it?'  It  is  your  problem,  but   we   are   ready   to   give    you   the    answer. 

Investigate  Technocracy  Now Before  it  Is  Too  Late  ! 


50 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


^H    1 


^H 


«>'■■ 


TECHNOCRACY 


I  ■ 


I  ■ 


^H 


WHAT? 

Technocracy  is  science  in  the  social 
field.  Encyclopedia  Americana  says: 
'Whatever  the  future  of  Technocracy, 
one  must  fairly  say  that  it  is  the 
only  program  of  social  and  economic 
reconstruction  which  is  in  complete 
intellectual  and  technical  accord  with 
the  age  in  which  we  live.' 

WHEN? 

Technocracy  originated  in  the  winter 
of  1918-1919  when  Howard  Scott 
formed  a  group  of  scientists,  engin- 
eers, and  economists  that  became 
known  in  1920  as  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance— a  research  organization.  Some 
of  the  better  known  names  in  the 
Technical  Alliance  are  of  interest, 
such  as:  Frederick  L.  Ackerman,  ar- 
chitect; L.  K.  Comstock,  electrical 
engineer;  Stuart  Chase,  C.P.A.  (now- 
well-known  writer);  Bassett  Jones, 
electrical  engineer;  Leland  Olds, 
statistician  (now  Federal  Power 
Commissioner);  Benton  Mackaye 
(now  in  the  Forestry  Department); 
Charles  P.  Steinmetz  and  Thorstein 
Veblen  (both  now  dead).  Howard 
Scott  was  Chief  Engineer.  In  1930 
the  group  was  first  known  as  Tech- 
nocracy. In  1933  it  was  incorporated 
under  the  laws  of  the  state  of  New 
York  as  a  non-profit,  non-political, 
non-sectarian  membership  organiza- 
tion. In  1934  Howard  Scott,  Direct- 
or-in-Chief,  made  his  first  Continent- 
al lecture  tour  which  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  present  Continental 
membership  organization.  Since  1934 
Technocracy  has  grown  steadily  with- 
out any  spectacular  spurts,  revivals, 
collapses,  or  rebirths.  This  is  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  press  has 
generally  'held  the  lid'  on  Technoc- 
racy, until  early  in  1942  when  it 
made  the  tremendous  'discovery'  that 
Technocracy  had  been  reborn  sudden- 
Iv,  full-fledged  with  all  its  members, 
headquarters,   etc.,   in    full    swing! 


WHY? 

Technocracy's  survey  of  the  econo- 
mic situation  in  North  America  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  de- 
velopment a  process  of  progressive 
social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instability 
reaches  the  limits  of  social  tolerance 
and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be 
installed  on  this  Continent  a  social 
mechanism  competent  to  meet  the 
needs  of  its  people.  Technocracy 
finds  further  that  the  day  when 
social  operations  on  this  Continent 
can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now 
necessary  that  there  be  applied  in 
the  social  field  the  quantitative 
methods  of  physical  science.  Tech- 
nocracy, therefore,  proposes  that  the 
North  American  Continent  be  operat- 
ed as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This 
control  would  operate  the  area  under 
a  balanced-load  system  of  production 
and  distribution,  whereunder  there 
would  be  distributed  purchasing 
power  commensurate  with  the  re- 
sources and  the  continuous  full-load 
operation  of  the  physical  equipment, 
with  the  guarantee  of  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living,  equality  of  income,  and 
economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of 
working  hours,  to  every  adult  in- 
habitant. 

HOW? 

At  this  stage  the  objectives  of  Tech- 
nocracy are  first,  the  education  of 
the  people  of  North  America  to  a 
realization  of  the  conditions  behind 
the  social  crisis,  and  second,  the  or- 
ganization of  all  those  willing  to  in- 
vestigate and  interest  themselves  in- 
to an  informed,  disciplined,  and  func- 
tionally capable  body  whose  know- 
ledge and  ability  can  be  called  upon 
to  prevent  chaos  in  North  America 
at  that  time,  now  imminent,  when 
the  Price  System  can  no  longer  be 
made  to  operate.     . 


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Idiot's  Delight 


AMID  the  Hollywood  glamourizing  of  this  Price  System  of  ours  and  the 
too,  too  wonderful  results  of  free  enterprise  in  winning  everything  from 
the  soap  derby  to  the  war,  one  great  irony  hits  us  in  the  face  in  the  midst 
of  our  lush  prosperity.  Only  during  a  total  world  war  has  the  Price  System 
of  United  States  and  Canada  with  all  its  slobbering  inefficiencies  approached 
full  employment  and  prosperous  living  conditions.  This  startling  fact  must  be 
apparent  to  every  North  American  today  that  only  under  a  world  war  can  our 
Government  spend  hundreds  of  billions  of  dollars,  and  only  if  our  Government, 
can  continue  to  spend  hundreds  of  billions  of  dollars  can  we  as  a  nation  con- 
tinue to  purchase  apparent  full  employment  and  apparent  prosperity.  Only 
during  a  world  war  has  the  Price  System  of  this  North  America  been  able  to 
offer  the  glittering  bribery  to  almost  every  segment  of  the  national  structure, 
a  bribery  so  attractive  that  it  seduces  all  citizens  into  the  rapturous  acceptance 
of  more  of  the  same,  of  more  wages  for  the  worker,  greater  salaries  for  the 
employed,  higher  prices  to  the  farmer,  more  customers  for  the  business  man, 
greater  profits  for  corporate  enterprise,  and  more  and  better  rackets  to  create 
more  delinquents. 

One  tragic  disaster  that  could  befall  United  States  and  Canada  at  this  time, 
a  disaster  thought  by  some  to  be  more  terrible  than  war,  would  be  simultaneous 
collapse  of  both  Germany  and  Japan  for  United  States  and  Canada  are  less 
prepared  for  peace  than  they  were  for  war.  It  therefore  follows  that  if  a 
world  war  could  be  continuous  and  perpetual,  full  employment,  prosperity,  and 
all  the  glamour  claims  of  free  enterprise  would  be  continuous  and  perpetual; 
but  there  is  a  fundamental  fault  that  prevents  this  because  the  controllers  of 
our  Price  System  have  always  hitherto  declared  war  on  nations  and  their  mili- 
tary forces.  The  great  error  in  such  a  war  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  armies  of 
the  enemy  surrender  and  that  the  enemy  nations  capitulate  and  make  peace. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Price  System  of  this  Continent  can  declare  war  on  the 
largest  single  area  of  the  globe  whose  soldiers  will  never  die  in  battle,  whose 
armies  will  never  surrender,  and  whose  government  will  not  capitulate,  the 
Price  System  will  have  finally  found  the  ideal  war  by  which  it  can  perpetuate 
this  paradise  of  morons.  Therefore,  Technocracy  proposes  that  the  only  hope 
that  this  Price  System  has  of  continuing  this  war  prosperity  is  for  Canada  and 
the  United  States  to  declare  war  on  the  63,985,000  square  miles  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean. 

— CHQ,  TECHNOCRACY  INC. 

(Section  Stamp) 


SECTION  1,  R.D.  11353 

TECHNOCRACY,  INC. 

203-4  KRESGE  BLOG. 
EDMONTON,      -      ALBERTA. 


ECH 


^ 

DIGEST 


4 


JAN. 


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PUBLISHED  IN  CANADA  BY  SEC.  1  -  R.  D.  12349 

TECHNOCRACY    INC. 


25c 


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HBBhhBBhMh 

■■•'"■•-■ 

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TECHNOCRACY 

DIGEST 

THE   ONLY    MAGAZINE    IN    CANADA    THAT    IS    PREPARING   THE    PEOPLE   OF   THIS 
COUNTRY    FOR   SOCIAL   CHANGE 


JANUARY,  1945 


VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 


No.  79 


—STAFF- 
DONALD   Bruce   Editor         M.  C. 

W.  D.  Ellwyn  Assistant  Editor  G.  H. 

Dorothy  Fearman  Assistant  Editor         V.  A. 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Assistant  Editor  H.  W. 


McKay  Business  Manager 

Connor  Circulation  Manager 

Knudsen   Research 

Carpenter  Production 


Our  Total  Conscription  Record  3 

Only  Science  Spells  Security 5 

We  Told  You  Then 18 

Ring  Out  the  Old,  Ring  In  the  New  23 

The  Battle  of  Synthetics  28 

The  Culture  of  Abundance 34 

Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun   41 

Revolution  in  the  Deep  South    44 

Electricity  in  Your  Postwar  Home    45 


Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349,  Techno- 
cracy Inc.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies  25  cents.  Twelve  issues  for  $2.50; 
six  issues  for  $1.25.  Bundle  rates  10  to  100,  20  cents  per  copy;  100  copies  or 
more,  19  cents  each.  Continental  Headquarters  of  Technocracy  Inc.  is  at  155 
E.  44th  St.,  New  York  17,  N.  Y.  Send  all  correspondence  and  manuscripts  and 
make  all  money  orders  payable  to  Technocracy  Digest,  625  West  Pender  St., 
Vancouver,  B.  C  Entered  as  second  class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  Department, 
Ottawa.     Printed  in  Canada. 


FRONT  COVER 

The  Stelco  Steel  Plant  at  Hamilton,  Ontario.  Overall  output  of  Canadian  steel  plants 
has  doubled  since  1939.  providing  a  postwar  problem  of  what  to  do  with  the  ex- 
panded capacity.  Technocracy  has  the  technological  answer  to  this  technological 
problem.  (National  Film  Board  Photo) 


■iU  .bMi 

■  MB 


Our  Total  Conscription  Record 


Technocrats  have  consistently  advocated  a  Total  Conscription  that 
will  do  more  than  merely  put  all  our  soldiers  on  the  same  basis — -it 
will  put  every  Canadian  on  the  same  basis  as  our  Armed  Forces, 
with  no  one  able  to  gain  any  economic  advantage  over  those  who 
have  gone  to  fight  the  enemy. 


^V  N  June  5,  12,  and  13,  1940, 
V-/  a  number  of  organizations  in 
Canada  were  banned  and  recom- 
mended to  be  banned.  Technoc- 
racy was  not  included  among 
these.  It  was  evident  that  there 
was  no  intention  of  banning 
Technocracy  at  that  time.  How- 
ever, on  June  4  the  program  of 
Total  Conscription  was  announc- 
ed by  the  Technocracy  Section  at 
Yorkton,  Saskatchewan,  and  pub- 
lished in  the  press  and  within  17 
days  (on  June  21)  a  special  Or- 
der-in-Council  banning  Technoc- 
racy only  was  tabled.  The  Order- 
in-Council  was  issued  by  the  De- 
partment of  Justice  and  announc- 
ed by  the  late  Hon.  Ernest 
Lapointe. 

The  first  Canadian  demand  for 
Total  Conscription  was  made  by 
the  Yorkton  Section  of  Technoc- 
racy on  June  6,  1940,  when  the 
local  group  attended  a  meeting  of 
the  War  Effort  Committee  in  the 
City  Hall  and  presented  a  resolu- 
tion calling  for  complete,  out- 
right conscription  of  men  and 
women,      wealth,      natural      re- 

JANUARY,  1945 


sources,  patents,  agriculture,  and 
industry. 

With  the  ban  Technocracy  was 
disbanded  in  Canada,  but  in  the 
United  States  the  Organization 
consistently  called  for  Total  Con- 
scription and  had  the  program 
endorsed  by  hundreds  of  labor 
union  locals,  service  clubs,  and 
other  groups. 

When  the  ban  was  lifted  on 
October  15,  1943,  Technocrats  in 
Canada  again  pressed  for  Total 
Conscription  and  wrote  many  let- 
ters to  Federal  Members  of  Par- 
liament and  Provincial  Members 
of  Legislative  Assemblies  urging 
its  adoption. 

When  the  stiff  Nazi  resistance 
and  the  heavy  Canadian  casual- 
ties precipitated  the  conscription 
crisis  in  Ottawa,  Technocrats  and 
others  flooded  Members  of  Par- 
liament with  the  following  reso- 
lution: 

'As  a  patriotic  citizen  of  Cana- 
da I  urge  you,  a  representative 
of  the  people,  to  adopt  Technoc- 
racy's program  of  All  for>  One  and 
One  for  All.  Canada  must  not 
permit    the    Province    of    Quebec 


to  blockade  the  national  support 
of  our  Armed  Forces  overseas. 
Technocracy  urges  the  installa- 
tion of  national  military  conscrip- 
tion as  the  first  step  toward 
Total  Conscription.  Technocracy 
urges  that  Canada  further  imple- 
ment national  military  conscrip- 
tion with  Total  Conscription  of 
Men,  Machines,  Materiel,  and 
Money  with  National  Service 
from  All  and  Profits  to  None  as 
the  only  adequate  program  cap- 
able of  defeating  fascism  at  home 
and  abroad,  thus  ensuring  an  or- 
derly transition  in  the  postwar 
period  to  a  Canada  of  security 
and  abundance.' 

Parliament  has  been  adjourned 
without  the  above  action  being 
taken,  but  Technocrats  do  not  in- 
tend to  let  the  matter  drop.  They 
will  continue  to  press  for  the  in- 
stitution of  the  only  program  that 
will  back  up  our  Armed  Forces 
with  everything  we've  got  and 
put  all  Canadians  on  the  same 
basis — with  no  one  able  to  gain 
any  economic  advantage  over 
those  who  have  gone  to  fight  the 
enemy.  Technocrats  will  not  wait 
to  be  prodded  by  disaster  a  short, 
halting  step  at  a  time! 

The  Total  Conscription  pro- 
gram of  Technocracy  is  not  to  be 
confused  with  the  'Total  Con- 
scription' of  other  organizations 
such  as  the  C.C.F.  and  Social 
Credit  parties.  For  instance,  the 


alleged  'Total  Conscription'  pro- 
gram of  the  C.C.F.  as  stated  in 
their  official  pamphlet  For  Vic- 
tory and  Reconstruction  is  merely 
an  excellent  example  of  political 
compromise  and  pie  in  the  sky. 
For  business,  this  so-called  radi- 
cal party  advocates  'a  100  percent 
tax  on  all  profits  in  excess  of  4 
percent  on  invested  capital.'  In 
other  words,  business  at  the  same 
old  stand.  For  manpower,  the 
C.C.F.  calls  for  'a  carefully  plan- 
ned use  of  our  manpower,'  which 
means  precisely  nothing.  For 
agriculture,  the  C.C.F.  proposes 
'a  revision  of  the  price  ceiling 
policy.'  For  labor,  the  C.C.F. 
urges  enactment  of  legislation 
which  will  'enforce  collective  bar- 
gaining.' This  means  that  there 
would  be  someone  to  bargain 
with,  i.e.,  private  business.  So 
that   is   Total   Conscription! 

The  real  Total  Conscription  ad- 
vocated by  Technocracy  is  the 
way  to  win  the  war  sooner  and 
to  preserve  internal  stability  af- 
ter the  war  by  a  system  of  control 
that  is  not  in  conflict  with  our 
technological  progress.  When 
hostilities  cease  we  would  thus 
have  an  opportunity,  free  from 
economic  and  political  confusion, 
to  determine  the  type  of  social 
mechanism  which  must  then  be 
established  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  North  America  and  its 
people.  — The  Editor 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


Only  Science  Spells  Security 


Our  advance  in  scientific  production  must  be  matched  by  an  equally 
scientific  method  of  distribution  and  overall  social  operation.  Tech- 
nocracy stands  ready  with  the  blueprints  which  will  guarantee  us  the 
ideals  of  the  Four  Freedoms  as  realities. 


FEW  of  the  people  of  North 
America  realize  how  fortun- 
ate they  are.  We  are  the  van- 
guard of  a  new  way  of  life  on 
this  Continent.  Most  of  us  fail 
to  comprehend  the  agrarianism 
and  the  general  privation  that 
have  dominated  all  nations  until 
recent  years.  Our  parents  and 
our  grandparents  are  familiar 
with  it.  Part  of  their  life  has 
been  a  continuation  of  a  condi- 
tion which  has  predominated 
through  all  the  seventy  centuries 
of  recorded  history.  Seventy 
centuries  of  a  static  age  of  agrar- 
ianism, scarcity,  deprivation,  and 
hard  labor  with  hand  tools.  The 
greatest  familiarity  our  younger 
generation  has  with  that  way  of 
life  is  through  the  comparisons 
pictured  to  them  by  their  par- 
ents, who  usually  deprecate  the 
new  and  venerate  the  old. 

The  age  we  have  left  behind 
us  in  North  America  is  one  to 
which  no  discerning  person 
would  want  to  return.  We  all 
appreciate  such  conveniences  as 
telephones,  radios,  automobiles, 
movies,  modern  surgery,  and 
plastics.  Few  of  us  would  volun- 


tarily give  up  all  these  to  return 
to  an  era  wherein  these  and 
numerous  other  services  are 
non-existent. 

How  many  of  those  who  prate 
about  the  rugged  individualism 
of  an  era  of  scarcity  would  be 
prepared  to  relinquish  all  these 
modern  benefits?  How  many 
actually  realize  that  the  require- 
ments of  the  old  way  of  life  were 
long  hours  of  toil  almost  every 
day  of  the  year  in  order  to  con- 
vert enough  energy  to  be  able  to 
maintain  life  itself? 

That  is  the  way  of  life  wherein 
98  percent  of  all  work  is  accomp- 
lished through  the  application  of 
muscle  energy  and  only  2  per- 
cent is  converted  by  other 
means.  It  is  necessarily  an  age 
of  scarcity,  for  man  could  never 
achieve  an  abundance  by  the 
conversion  of  his  own  energy 
alone. 

Human  toil,  hand  tools,  and 
long  hours  are  integral  parts  of 
the  static  culture  of  yesterday, 
and  can  never  assure  social 
security  for  all  the  people  of  any 
land  area.  That  is  still  the  way 
of   most  of  the    peoples     of    the 


JANUARY,  1945 


world.  Such  economic  advances 
as  have  been  made  have  not 
greatly  affected  the  social  wel- 
fare of  most  of  the  world's  popu- 
lation, for  the  world  as  a  whole 
is  comparatively  a  'have  not' 
area.  In  most  countries  there  is 
an  overburden  of  population  in 
proportion  to  the  available  re- 
sources which  are  required  to 
raise  the  social  welfare  of  the 
people,  and  there  is  little  im- 
mediate indication  of  improving 
the  social  welfare  of  that  popula- 
tion. No  matter  how  humani- 
tarian or  philanthropic  some  of 
us  may  feel,  that  remains  the 
realistic  fact  of  the  situation. 

What  is  primarily  responsible 
for  the  difference  between  our 
physical  abundance  on  this  Con- 
tinent and  the  scarcity  of  the 
rest  of  the  world  is  the  fact  that 
we  have  on  this  Continent  the 
requisite  resources  in  accessible 
locations  for  the  production  and 
conversion  necessary  to  a  high- 
energy  civilization. 

We  have  over  50  percent  of  the 
world's  known  resources  on  this 
Continent,  which  comprises  only 
19  percent  of  the  land  area  of  the 
world.  A  technological  civiliza- 
tion is  based  upon  energy  and 
minerals.  We  have  the  greatest 
known  share  of  these  in  the 
world. 

There  are  other  areas  which 
have  sufficient  resources  to  raise 


their  standards  of  living  ap- 
preciably, especially  the  Union 
of  Soviet  Socialist  Republics  and 
Western  Europe.  They,  how- 
ever, have  not  advanced  to  the 
technological  stage  we  have,  and 
consequently  have  no  problems 
that  cannot  be  solved  through 
the  methods  and  procedures  of  a 
Price  System  form  of  operation. 

People  of  North  America  can 
count  themselves  fortunate  in 
another  way  too.  The  two  great- 
est and  most  terrible  of  all  wars 
have  been  waged  on  land  areas 
other  than  their  own.  We  can 
be  grateful  for  our  geographic 
location  with  the  world's  two 
largest  oceans  bounding  our 
shores.  We  have  engaged  in 
these  wars  at  a  financial  profit, 
although  they  have  resulted  in 
a  net  physical  loss  to  our  Con- 
tinent, despoiling  our  resources 
and  depleting  them  seriously  to 
the  detriment  of  future  genera- 
tions. 

When  our  ancestors  arrived 
from  the  Old  World  they 
brought  little  with  them  except 
the  ideals,  concepts,  traditions, 
and  beliefs  which  had  developed 
through  the  centuries  in  their 
previous  environment.  Upon 
their  arrival  in  North  America 
they  entered  a  new  environment. 
Adaptation  to  new  conditions 
was  difficult  and  sometimes 
drastic,  but  still  it  was  accomp- 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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lished,  for  inherently  this  Con- 
tinent is  conducive  to  human 
habitation.  Much  of  our  an- 
cestors' traditions  and  folklore 
has  been  discarded,  but  because 
the  condition  existing  here  has 
also  been  one  of  scarcity,  our  at- 
titude and  approach  to  social 
problems  has  altered  but  little. 
Idealism  and  individual  oppor- 
tunism have  reached  loftier 
heights  here  than  anywhere  else 
simply  because  the  resources  of 
our  land  area  are  conducive  to 
a  higher  standard  of  living  than 
elsewhere.  Basically  we  main- 
tain, even  now,  the  same  ap- 
proach to  our  social  problems 
here  as  they  have  always  em- 
ployed in  the  Old  World. 

Our  physical  progress,  how- 
ever, arising  from  our  bounteous 
resources,  has  developed  a  new 
and  different  set  of  circum- 
stances from  those  ever  confront- 
ing any  other  civilization.  Hu- 
man concurrence  with  these  cir- 
cumstances does  not  include  the 
institutionalized  cultures  of  the 
age  of  scarcity.  North  America 
has,  in  a  physical  sense,  left  the 
rest  of  the  world  far  behind. 

The  apex  of  the  difficulties  of 
the  Old  World  is  exemplified  in 
the  thousands  of  dissenting  ra- 
cial, linguistic,  and  cultural 
groups  in  Asia  and  Europe  try- 
ing to  divide  a  scarcity  among 
their  people.     On  this  Continent, 

JANUARY,  1945 


with  our  one  predominant  lan- 
guage, one  predominant  culture, 
and  the  necessity  for  transit  of 
goods  and  services  between  our 
countries,  we  do  not  face  most 
of  the  impediments  to  unified 
action  that  occur  abroad.  In 
comparison  with  the  new  and 
colossal  problems  we  do  face, 
however,  the  petty  bickerings 
and  internecine  struggles  in  oth- 
er parts  of  the  world  pale  into 
insignificance. 

Most  of  the  people  of  this  Con- 
tinent are  even  now  unaware  of 
the  real  problems  of  North 
America.  Their  views  are  re- 
stricted. They  haven't  the  va- 
guest conception  of  the  magni- 
tude of  the  pressure  that  physi- 
cal events  will  increasingly  exert 
upon  their  lives.  It  is  interesting 
for  a  moment  to  survey  this  pres- 
sure, for  it  is  the  forerunner  of 
social  change. 

Social  change  itself  is  an  al- 
teration in  the  living  methods  of 
a  population  on  a  given  land 
area.  It  is  measurable,  and  is 
determined  by  an  alteration  of 
the  energy  conversion  within 
that  area.  Social  change  means 
physical  change,  and  it  is 
brought  about  by  the  advance- 
ment or  pressure  of  physical 
events.  In  our  case  it  is  the  pres- 
sure of  technological  advance- 
ment and  increasing  energy  con- 
version    which     is     forcing     the 


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peoples    of     this     Continent    into 
social  change. 

This  is  not  in  accord  with  the 
concepts  of  social  change  which 
are  arrived  at  from  a  philosophi- 
cal line  of  approach.  We  are 
conditioned  to  thinking  that 
idealism,  the  practise  of  demo- 
cratic privileges,  or  bloody  revo- 
lution are  the  means  of  bringing 
about  social  change.  Let  it  be 
clearly  understood,  however, 
that  in  matters  weighing  upon 
physical  problems,  abstract 
forms  of  thought  weigh  much 
lighter  than  a  feather.  No  matter 
how  high  the  ideals  held,  the 
democratic  privileges  practised, 
or  the  anarchistic  conditions  de- 
veloped, social  progress  will  not 
result  therefrom.  It  will  take 
far  more  than  these  ever  to 
achieve  social  advance  for  those 
masses  which  crowd  most  of 
Europe  and  Asia.  Until  some 
new  and  as  yet  unknown  bounti- 
ful source  of  energy  is  discover- 
ed, or  until  mass  depopulation 
occurs  in  those  areas,  the  people 
are  doomed  to  a  life  of  unremit- 
ting toil  and  poverty. 

It  must  likewise  be  recognized 
that  the  magnificent  strides  the 
U.S.S.R.  has  made  within  the 
last  decade  have  resulted  from 
the  application  of  area  tech- 
nology and  the  extension  of 
science  and  research  to  domin- 
ance  in   determining  how  things 


are  to  be  done,  not  by  humani- 
tarian urges  or  philosophical 
fumblings. 

On  this  Continent  we  are  at- 
tempting to  meet  the  pressure  of 
new  physical  events  through  the 
old  methods  of  philosophical  ap- 
proach. The  culture  of  scarcity 
and  the  culture  of  abundance  are 
unalterably  opposed.  It  is  only 
natural  that  the  method  of 
thought  adapted  to  one  will  not 
apply  to  the  other.  Nothing  has 
been  more  apparent  to  discern- 
ing North  Americans  than  this 
fact. 

Harry  Elmer  Barnes,  writing 
in  the  November  1943  issue  of 
The  Progressive  states  in  part: 
'The  man  who  expresses  great 
contempt  for  the  transportation 
ideals  of  the  horse-and-buggy 
era  usually  defends  with  gusto 
and  conviction  political  and  eco- 
nomic ideas  which  antedate  the 
stagecoach.' 

Thus  is  stated  a  condition 
which  Technocrats  have  known 
for  years.  The  people  of  this 
Continent  can  only  face  pro- 
gressively increasing  social  in- 
stability until  their  social  opera- 
tions are  adapted  to  the  techno- 
logical mechanism  which  we 
have  constructed. 

Not  until  a  day  of  reckoning 
arrived  in  1929  did  more  than  a 
handful  of  people  recognize  cer- 
tain aspects  of  physical  progres- 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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sion  occurring  on  this  Continent. 
That  day  was  a  severe  blow  to 
the  financial  institution  here,  but 
it  was  only  a  prelude  to  what 
was  to  follow.  For  ten  years  we 
existed  amid  the  greatest  para- 
dox that  ever  befell  any  people. 
On  this,  the  richest  land  area  of 
the  world,  we  developed  an  arti- 
ficial scarcity  of  vital  goods  and 
services  while  our  people  sank 
to  progressively  lower  levels  of 
living.  We  deliberately  perpetu- 
ated conditions  of  starvation  and 
malnutrition;  in  so  doing  we  had 
to  destroy,  curtail,  store,  and 
subsidize  the  very  goods  which 
would  have  eliminated  those 
conditions. 

Relief  rolls  and  unemployment 
developed.  In  April  1933  there 
were  1,517,531  people  on  direct 
relief  in  Canada,  while  as  late  as 
February  1938  half  the  popula- 
tion of  Saskatchewan  were  re- 
ceiving direct  relief.  As  late  as 
January  1940,  four  months  after 
the  outbreak  of  war,  714,143 
people  were  still  on  relief  in 
Canada. 

Part  of  the  cost  we  are  bearing 
as  a  result  of  those  awful  years 
is  evident  in  the  report  of  Dr.  J. 
J.  McCann,  M.P.,  and  President 
of  the  Canadian  Public  Health 
Association,  who  has  presented 
figures  which  show  that  44  per- 
cent of  the  young  men  recently 
called    up    for     military     service 


were  unfit.  Without  a  doubt,  a 
large  proportion  of  these  physi- 
cal defects  would  not  have  oc- 
curred had  the  necessary  food, 
shelter,  and  medical  attention 
been  supplied  these  men  in  their 
youth. 

We  permitted  the  maintenance 
of  such  a  condition  because  we 
were  not  prepared  to  recognize 
a  physical  distribution  problem. 
We  chose  to  maintain  our  con- 
cepts of  what  was  'right'  in  duti- 
ful obedience  to  past  condition- 
ing. Surely  none  of  us  want  to 
return  to  those  prewar  condi- 
tions, and  many  Canadians  do 
not  expect  to.  There  are  some 
people,  though,  who  are  resign- 
edly prepared  to  accept  as  inevit- 
able a  return  of  such  conditions. 
That  attitude  en  masse  is  the  ex- 
act requirement  for  the  institu- 
tion of  fascism  and  the  freezing 
of  all  social  change.  It  is  the 
essence  of  mass  moronity  and 
human  inertia. 

Most  people  still  do  not  under- 
stand just  why  the  depression 
years  occurred.  It  is  a  simple 
matter  to  understand  this  once 
a  person  analyzes  the  physical 
factors  concerned.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  conduct  individual 
research  activities  into  all  the 
various  branches  of  industry, 
production,  distribution,  popula- 
tion, and  resources,  for '  this  has 
already  been  done. 


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Technocracy  is  the  result  of 
such  an  investigation.  Technoc- 
racy is  the  result  of  a  quantita- 
tive analysis  of  the  North  Ameri- 
can Continent  in  relation  to  the 
rest  of  the  world.  The  conclu- 
sions are  that  this  Continent  is 
an  organic  unit  capable  of  a 
technologically  produced  abund- 
ance and  of  Continental  security. 
If  you  care  to  have  the  necessary 
work  done  in  gathering  and  cor- 
relating statistics  then  you  can 
arrive  at  similar  conclusions. 

Another  group  of  persons  ap- 
pointed by  the  United  States 
Government  carried  out  such  a 
survey.  Their  report  has  been 
published  and  named  Techno- 
logical Trends  and  National 
Policy,  and  the  conclusions 
reached  were  summed  up  by 
them  as  follows:  'It  may  be  ex- 
pected that  the  dislocation  caus- 
ed by  technological  progress  will 
continue  to  present  serious  prob- 
lems of  industrial  and  economic 
and  social  adjustments.' 

That  is  exactly  what  Technoc- 
racy has  been  telling  you,  only 
Technocrats  have  not  been  afraid 
to  project  their  conclusions  and 
to  present  a  synthesis  of  the 
future  on  the  same  basis  of  facts. 
These  conclusions  may  be  sum- 
med up  concisely  as  follows. 

In  the  past  we  operated  more 
or  less  as  independant  produc- 
tion units.     The  main  industries 


of  the  population  were  agricul- 
ture and  small  scale  handicraft 
manufacturing.  In  the  past, 
human  labor,  while  not  always 
the  sole  source  of  power,  was  so 
essentially  part  of  all  productive 
processes  that  in  general  an  in- 
crease in  production  could  only 
be  obtained  by  an  increase  in  the 
total  number  of  man-hours  of 
human  labor  expended.  As  time 
passed,  however,  and  the  popula- 
tion grew,  specialization  began, 
and  small  handicraft  units  com- 
menced production.  This  expan- 
sion developed  into  a  steady  de- 
crease in  the  numbers  of  estab- 
lishments required  to  produce 
what  the  population  needed  and 
could  consume,  through  its  pur- 
chasing power.  The  overall  pro- 
duction of  each  of  these  units  be- 
came an  increasing  quantity. 

This  trend  is  taking  place  in 
all  industries.  Since  technology, 
which  is  responsible  for  this 
trend,  is  also  increasing,  this 
trend  will  continue  into  the  fu- 
ture. We  are  no  longer  in  an 
era  wherein  thousands  of  small, 
independent  units  are  in  opera- 
tion. Instead  we  have  the  larg- 
er proportion  of  our  population 
dependent  upon  a  few  very  large 
units,  each  unit  dependent  upon 
the  other,  and  connected  by 
complex  communication  systems. 
At  present,  as  contrasted  with 
the  past,  most  of  our  population 


10 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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lives  in  urban  areas  which  rely 
upon  the  continuous  operation 
of  telephones,  mines,  factories, 
sewers,  electrical  power,  trans- 
port systems,  etc.  And  even 
rural  areas  today  depend  upon 
gasoline,  store  clothing,  factory 
built  equipment,  canned  goods 
and  modern  medical  supplies. 
This  is  a  condition  of  living  no 
people  before  has  been  faced 
with  to  such  a  degree  as  we  are 
today  in  North  America,  and  is 
directly  the  result  of  our  expand- 
ing technology. 

Paralleling  this  trend,  another 
equally  paradoxical  development 
has  arrived.  In  all  preceding 
history,  as  has  already  been 
mentioned,  an  increase  in  pro- 
duction required  an  increase  in 
the  number  of  man-hours  of 
work  performed.  Today,  how- 
ever, we  have  reached  a  stage 
wherein  an  increase  in  produc- 
tion can  only  be  accomplished 
by  a  decrease  in  the  number  of 
man-hours  employed.  The  rea- 
son, of  course,  is  readily  observ- 
able in  the  increasing  use  of 
kilowatt  hours  of  extraneous  en- 
ergy and  the  reduction  in  man- 
hours  of  labor  in  any  production 
operation.  We  have  designed 
our  technology  and  mass  produc- 
tion technique  to  produce  goods 
at  greater  speed  and  with  great- 
er precision  at  lower  cost  than 
it  is  possible  for  a  human  being 

JANUARY,  1945 


to  produce  them.  The  amount 
of  work  a  man  can  do  in  an 
eight-hour  day  is  rated  at  one- 
tenth  of  a  horsepower.  One 
kilowatt  is  rated  at  one  and  one- 
third  horsepower,  and  can  do  the 
work  of  thirteen  men  working  an 
eight-hour  day.  The  expense  of 
employing  a  man  at  say  fifty 
cents  an  hour  when  it  is  possible 
to  employ  extraneous  energy  at 
approximately  one-fivehundredth 
of  this  price  has,  within  this  our 
Price  System,  been  a  goading 
spur  in  the  replacement  of  man- 
hours   with  electrical  energy. 

Each  time  new  equipment  is 
devised,  or  old  equipment  is  re- 
designed, the  newer  equipment 
operates  in  general  more  swiftly, 
more  automatically,  more  effici- 
ently, and  usually  occupies  less 
space  than  the  equipment  that  it 
displaces.  Since  the  hours  of 
labor  in  productive  processes  are 
becoming  increasingly  unimport- 
ant, and  will  become  even  less 
important  as  each  new  process 
or  piece  of  equipment  is  install- 
ed, the  distribution  of  the  result- 
ing abundance  is  impossible  of 
achievement  through  the  age-old 
methods  of  'value'  being  put  up- 
on man-hours  of  labor,  which  are 
a  steadily   declining  quantity. 

These  conditions  are  respons- 
ible for  upsetting  all  our  old  con- 
cepts of  social  operation.  For 
ten   years   before   World   War   II 


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we  witnessed  a  struggle  to  per- 
petuate an  archaic  set  of  social 
controls  over  a  mechanism  for 
which  these  controls  were  not 
designed.      Then   came   the   war. 

What  has  been  the  effect  of 
war  upon  these  physical  trends? 
Some  people  claim  the  war  has 
upset  the  calculations  of  the 
Technocrats.  To  bolster  this 
fallacy,  based  upon  a  superficial 
glance  at  the  situation,  they  usu- 
ally cite  our  current  war  boom 
— 'Are  these  not  the  greatest 
boom  times  we  have  ever  wit- 
nessed? Are  not  more  people 
employed  at  more  fantastic 
wages  than  ever  before?  Are 
there  not  more  and  greater  op- 
portunities for  enterprising  in- 
dividualism now  and  in  the 
postwar  than  ever  before?' 

The  gullible  and  the  avarici- 
ous are  alike  delighted  with  the 
trends  in  our  social  economy  as  a 
result  of  this  war.  Many  are  the 
hopes,  the  wishes,  and  the  opti- 
misms held  forth  for  the  con- 
tinuation of  these  conditions  in 
the  postwar.  But  intelligent 
North  Americans  have  long  since 
quit  falling  for  the  same  old 
hocus-pocus  that  because  'times 
are  good  they  must  remain  that 
way.'  If  wishing  has  anything 
to  do  with  the  matter,  what 
about  those  prayerful  years  be- 
fore the  war,  wishing  for  an  end 
of    the    depression?     No,    there 


can  be  no  salvation  through  the 
operation  of  our  Price  System. 
We  shall  witness  compromise; 
we  shall  witness  palliative  mea- 
sures by  the  score  as  we  witness- 
ed them  before;  but  we  are  head- 
ing for  an  even  greater  defeat 
in  the  application  of  these  mea- 
sures than  we  ever  experienced 
before,  for  basically  the  physi- 
cal trends  that  govern  our  North 
American  destiny  have  been 
highly  accelerated. 

North  America  might  have 
adopted  the  program  of  Total 
Conscription  as  presented  gratis 
by  Technocracy  Inc.  in  1940 — a 
program  designed  to  develop  a 
maximum  war  effort  possible 
through  the  conscription  and  full 
utilization  of  our  entire  physical 
mechanism.  Such  a  program 
would  ensure  equality  of  sacri- 
fice. Because  all  financial  opera- 
tions would  be  frozen,  it  would 
have  eliminated  blood  profits, 
black  marketing,  and  debt  ex- 
pansion. 

Through  this  program  tech- 
nology and  science  would  be- 
come the  deciding  factors  of 
what  type  of  material  we  would 
produce,  and  where  and  how  we 
would  produce  it.  Every  physic- 
ally capable  man  and  woman 
would  be  placed  in  National  Ser- 
vice as  an  organized,  coordinated 
body  that  would  eliminate  the 
wails  of  a  labor  shortage  which 


12 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


I 


MM 


I 


■ 

M 


■ 


HF 


has  resulted  from  our  present 
haphazard  operations. 

A  Total  War  effort  demands 
that  Total  Conscription  of  all 
men,  machines,  materiel,  and 
money  be  instituted,  for  a  maxi- 
mum effort  cannot  otherwise  be 
achieved.  A  Total  War  demands 
National  Service  from  all  citizens. 
No  nation  can  back  a  techno- 
logical army  in  this  age  ade- 
quately so  long  as  millions  of 
minor  objectives  are  permitted 
to  hamper  and  deviate  our  efforts 
in  meeting  the  overall  military 
goal  of  complete  military  victory. 
A  Total  War  necessitates  that 
military  strategy  be  unhampered 
by  the  imposts  of  political  ex- 
pediency, business  restrictions, 
and  the  efforts  of  minority  pres- 
sure groups  demanding  special 
pecuniary  privileges.  What  a 
poor  imitation  our  war  program 
is  when  compared  with  a  design- 
ed, overall  operation  of  a  total 
effort! 

We  have  hundreds  of  influen- 
tial 'dollar-a-year'  men  lodged 
comfortably  in  our  war  produc- 
tion and  allocation  activities. 
These  men  are  without  doubt  as- 
tute businessmen,  but  in  few 
cases  is  their  technical  knowledge 
worth  even  the  dollar  a  year! 
We  have  innumerable  opportun- 
ists on  the  gravy  train,  busily 
directing  the  placement  of  orders 
towards     their     own     respective 

JANUARY,  1945 


businesses.  North  America  has 
retained  the  cash  register  com- 
plex of  who  will  do  what,  and  for 
what  price?  North  Americans 
who  really  take  this  war  serious- 
ly cannot  help  but  wonder  just 
what  the  eight  to  ten  billions  of 
net  profits  for  Canada  and  the 
United  States  in  1943  has  done 
to  expedite  the  winning  of  this 
war.  Or  the  two  billions  spent 
on  advertising.  Or  the  illicit 
billions  that  have  accrued  to 
black  marketeers. 

How  can  we  possibly  rate  our 
war  effort  as  an  organized  one 
when  we  have  duplications  of 
service — several  milk  wagons 
covering  the  same  area  or  even 
the  same  houses  each  day  of  the 
year,  half-a-dozen  laundry  trucks 
covering  the  same  routes,  and 
hundreds  of  other  similar  dupli- 
cations. What  real  purpose  is 
served  by  the  production  of  shod- 
dy goods?  How  does  the  nation 
benefit  by  the  continued  use  of 
obsolescent  plant  and  equipment? 

It  is  in  spite  of  these  limita- 
tions rather  than  because  of  them 
that  our  workers  on  the  produc- 
tion lines,  our  inventors,  our  en- 
gineers, our  technologists,  have 
raised  our  capacity  to  produce, 
and  production  itself,  to  all-time 
highs.  We  are  paying  the  price 
of  our  stupidity  in  the  loss  of  un- 
told lives,  unnecessary'  wastage 
of  our  resources,  and  an  apparent 


13 


•  * 

mm 


MB* 


HI 


h'tlii/HilllM  iTi 


,N.1  , 


indefinite  prolongation  of  the 
war.  The  postwar  conditions  to 
face  us  will  be  more  difficult 
than  any  other  nation  has  been 
forced  to  face  in  world  history. 
We  have  refused  thus  far  to  in- 
stal  Total  Conscription,  and  have 
accordingly  damned  ourselves  to 
increasing  social  insecurity  and 
intolerance.  The  physical  trends 
that  guide  North  America's  social 
footsteps  have  been  immeasur- 
ably speeded  by  World  War  II. 

In  1937  the  United  States  made 
use  of  122  billions  of  kilowatt 
hours.  The  1943  figure  was  210 
billions,  whilst  the  estimate  for 
1944  is  given  at  234  billions.  We 
are  served  by  billions  of  invisible, 
tireless,  and  accurate  slaves  that 
operate  without  threat  of  strikes, 
sitdowns,  or  dissention.  Canada's 
1943  kilowatt  output  was  rated  at 
more  than  40  billions. 

The  number  of  man-hours  re- 
quired in  the  construction  of  a 
four-engine  bomber  has  been  cut 
during  this  war  from  200,000  to 
a  mere  13,000.  A  San  Francisco 
prefabrication  firm  has  establish- 
ed a  record  by  turning  out  700 
three-room  prefabricated  houses 
in  700  hours.  Five  room  houses 
have  been  made  in  40  minutes. 
A  new  riveting  machine  in  the 
Lockheed  Aircraft  factory  at 
Burbank,  California,  will  rivet 
between  36,000  and  75,000  rivets 
per    hour.      Three    men    in    six 


minutes  with  the  use  of  this  ma- 
chine can  equal  the  work  that 
formerly  needed  100  man-hours 
of  labor.  Canada  has  increased 
her  agricultural  production  since 
1939  by  40  percent  with  500,000 
fewer  workers  on  the  farms. 

Our  'free  enterprise'  institu- 
tions of  price  and  profit  could  not 
expand  to  the  extent  necessary  to 
produce  a  sufficient  volume  of 
material  to  smother  the  enemy. 
Not  only  this,  but  for  some  con- 
siderable time  they  endeavored 
to  convince  our  Government 
that  their  installed  capacity  at 
that  time  was  sufficient  to  do  the 
job.  The  pressure  of  events 
abroad  forced  the  Government  to 
step  in  and  carry  out  this  expan- 
sion. In  North  America,  the 
Governments  of  the  United 
States  and  Canada  have  been 
forced  to  erect  over  $28  billions 
of  new  plant  capacity. 

More  machine  tools  were  pro- 
duced in  the  United  States  from 
1941  to  1943  than  had  been  pro- 
duced in  the  previous  20  years! 
The  radio-electronics  industry  is 
turning  out  special  war  equip- 
ment at  the  rate  of  more  than 
$3  billions  annually — a  greater 
volume  than  the  prewar  automo- 
bile industry,  according  to  Mr. 
L.  Gubb,  chairman  of  Philco 
Corporation. 

Production  indices  of  the  Uni- 
ted  States   run   almost   two    and 


14 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


one-half  times  overall  production 
of  1933-35  levels.  Our  ability  to 
produce  an  abundance  has  climb- 
ed far  above  the  dizzy  heights  of 
K2n.  Our  opportunities  for  pro- 
viding an  adequate  living  stand- 
ard for  every  North  American 
were  never  greater. 

i  I  om  facts  and  ngures  present- 
ed in  this  article  it  is  possible  to 
obtcn  a  fleeting  glimpse  into  the 
magnitude  of  the  mechanism  we 
have  created — a  veritable  Jugg- 
ernaut! That  mechanism  is  even 
now  operating  at  much  less  than 
full  load  factor,  while  over  13 
millions  of  North  America's 
healthiest,  most  productive  per- 
sonnel are  in  the  Armed  Forces 
not  producing,  but  consuming, 
while  millions  more  are  produc- 
ing for  the  shooting  war  alone. 
We  are  conducting  foreign  relief 
on  a  grand  scale,  but  in  spite  of 
everything,  surpluses  are  piling 
up  at  home.  There  will  be  an  ad- 
mittedly 'ponderous'  stockpile  of 
saleable  goods  in  the  United 
States  alone  of  between  $50  and 
$100  billions — these  are  already 
manufactured  and  merely  await 
disposition. 

Consider  a  typical  situation  in 
Vancouver,  B.  C.  The  biggest 
war  boom  industry  is  shipbuild- 
ing, and  the  peak  peace-time  em- 
ployment was  reached  in  1939, 
when  750  persons  were  employ- 
ed.    In  1943  it  had  risen  to  the 


wartime  peak  of  33,000  in  July 
of  that  year,  but  since  then  the 
figure  has  dropped  to  less  than 
22,000  persons.  The  postwar 
prospects  in  shipbuilding  are  not 
exactly  bright.  The  most  opti- 
mistic shipyard  proprietor  esti- 
mates the  postwar  peak  may  be 
kept  as  high  as  6,000,  but  others 
have  pointed  out  that  this  figure 
is  away  too  high  for  with  that 
number  building  ships  in  Van- 
couver the  complete  coastal  ton- 
nage of  British  Columbia  could 
be  replaced  within  two  years! 

Cutbacks  and  layoffs  from  now 
on  will  grow.  We  have  left  the 
all-time  high  of  employment  be- 
hind, and  are  slowly  but  very 
steadily  heading  down  the  bumpy 
road  to  an  all-time  low  in  de- 
pressions. 

Among  the  glowing  ideals  held 
out  as  the  objectives  which  we 
are  fighting  to  preserve  are  those 
of  freedom  from  want  and  fear. 
When  have  we  in  North  America 
had  either  of  these  that  urges 
us  to  fight  to  preserve  them? 
What  little  there  has  been,  or  is, 
can  only  be  purchased  at  a  price 
most  people  cannot  afford  to  pay. 
These  two  rare  gems  will  shine 
with  increasing  lustre  as  they 
become  less  and  less  a  reality  to 
more  and  more  North  Americans. 

There  is  a  rising  fear  across 
this  Continent — fear  of  postwar 
insecurity.     Vancouver,  B.  C,  is 


JANUARY,  1945 


15 


■  ■ 


■  ■ 


seized  in  the  first  spasms  of  these 
jitters,  which  are  becoming  more 
severe  with  each  passing  day. 
Who  are  we,  talking  of  'freedom 
of  want'  for  all  people  in  the 
world,  except  those  on  this  Con- 
tinent, to  whom  alone  this  could 
have  been  a  reality  for  the  past 
decade  or  more — the  only  area 
on  earth  where  it  is  possible  to- 
day? 

There  are  still  thousands  of 
Canadians  and  Americans  who 
are  on  the  borderline  of  starva- 
tion. Is  not  our  'freedom  from 
want'  exemplified  and  given  the 
horse-laugh  in  the  Community 
Chest  Campaign  appeals  through- 
out the  Continent,  wherein  we 
acknowledge  the  millions  of 
needy  still  with  us?  It  is  high 
time  we  realized  that  all  charity 
is  but  a  palliative  measure  which 
makes  a  filthy  condition  more 
bearable,  and  that  in  donating  to 
any  charity  appeal  we  are  in  ef- 
fect endorsing  the  continuance 
of  the  condition.  It  is  merely  that 
we  choose  to  treat  the  disease  in- 
stead of  preventing  it  from  grow- 
ing at  all.  In  bitter  actuality  the 
Four  Freedoms  remain  nice- 
sounding  words — an  ideal  for  the 
future.  And  the  only  future  in 
which  they  can  be  realized  is  a 
Future   of  Abundance. 

Note  the  rising  call  to  action 
against  the  threat  of  abundance. 
It  has  been  well  summed  up  in 


the  words  of  Walter  Reuther, 
president  of  the  United  Automo- 
bile Workers  Union,  who  recent- 
ly said:  'We  must  act  now  and 
organize  now  to  free  ourselves 
from  fear  of  abundance,  so  that 
the  desire  of  the  vast  majority 
of  Americans  for  full  production 
and  full  employment  in  the  post- 
war period  can  be  democratically 
fulfilled.'  Here  apparently  is  a 
man  who  fails  to  see  that  we  are 
today  producing  the  greatest 
plethora  of  goods  ever  produced, 
and  yet  are  doing  it  while  mil- 
lions of  our  own  and  other  troops 
are  destroying  instead  of  creating. 

Full  production  can  never  be 
achieved  under  Price  System 
controls.  Man-hours  per  unit  of 
production  are  a  declining  quan- 
tity, yet  it  is  upon  work  and 
wages  that  all  the  various  forms 
of  Price  System  planning  are 
based.  Also  note  that  the  one 
factor  which  can  ensure  social 
security  for  every  North  Ameri- 
can, namely  an  abundance,  is 
held  forth  as  a  threat.  Abund- 
ance is  not  a  threat  to  the  social 
welfare  of  North  Americans,  but 
it  is  a  threat  to  the  continued 
operation  of  all  institutions  which 
flourish  within  a  scarcity  eco- 
nomy. 

To  preserve  those  institutions 
of  merchandising  and  their  opera- 
tions is  the  current  worry  of  our 
postwar  planners.     It  is  to  per- 


16 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


« 


wri.Vi 


■ 


\»- 


.      >■•  LI 


I  I 


petuate  the  environment  in 
which  these  operations  can  sur- 
vive that  the  clarion  call  sounds 
forth  from  all  establishments  of 
'free  enterprise'  at  this  time. 
That  perpetuation  already  has  us 
in  the  greatest  paradox  of  de- 
struction and  artificially  created 
scarcity  ever  known  to  mankind. 
For  the  duration  of  the  war, 
and  for  six  months  thereafter, 
Technocracy  has  no  other  pro- 
gram than  that  of  Total  Conscrip- 
tion of  all  men,  machines,  ma- 
teriel, and  money,  with  national 
service  from  all  and  profits  to 
none.  It  is  a  program  of  de- 
signed operation  which  will 
eliminate  the  obvious  moronities 
and  handicaps  under  which  we 
now  so  valiantly  struggle.  Total 
Conscription  is  not  Technocracy's 
social  program,  but  rather  a  pro- 
gram designed  for  the  specific 
purpose  of  winning  this  war 
against  our  fascist  enemies  at  a 
minimum  cost  in  lives  and  re- 
sources. It  is  designed  for  our 
war  environment,  and  will  en- 
sure stability  in  the  immediate 
postwar  period  when  it  is  put  in- 
to operation.  When  the  debacle 
of  present  Price  System  opera- 
tions becomes  too  heavy  a  burden 


upon  our  politicians,  they  can 
put  the  program  of  Total  Con- 
scription into  operation  over- 
night. They  have  the  power 
under  our  legalized  parliament- 
ary procedure. 

Our  advance  in  scientific  pro- 
duction must  be  matched  by  an 
equally  scientific  method  of  dis- 
tribution and  overall  social  op- 
eration. Nothing  less  will  suffice. 
For  this  Continent  to  perpetuate 
the  control  and  operation  of  our 
enormous  productive  facilities  for 
the  advantage  and  personal  gain 
of  a  small  minority  means  the  re- 
striction of  the  flow  of  an  abund- 
ance to  all  North  America's  citi- 
zens. 

This  question  we  must  face, 
and,  under  the  pressure  of  physi- 
cal events,  measure  up  to.  It  is 
the  problem  that  Technocracy 
poses  you  as  it  stands  with  the 
blueprints  which  would  guaran- 
tee us  for  the  first  time  the  ideals 
of  the  Four  Freedoms  as  reali- 
ties. As  an  intelligent  citizen 
you  can  do  no  less  than  investi- 
gate Technocracy's  proposals 
which  can  be  applied  to  ensure 
your  own  future. 

—Milton  Wildfong 


'1 


if  LABOR'S  REACTION  to  large-scale  cutbacks  remains  a  constant  worry.  A  WPB 
try-out  of  its  smooth-the-way  plan  at  the  Worthington  Pump  plant  at  Holyoke,  Mass.. 
boomeranged.  Employees  responded  with  a  stay-in-strike  to  maintain  all-out  produc- 
tion. — Newsweek 


JANUARY,  1945 


17 


Wm 


5s 
JR.     Brear  • 


BE 


We  Told  You  Then 


Twenty-four  years  ago,  in  an  interview  given  to  Charles  H.  Wood, 
Associate  Editor  of  the  New  York  World  on  Sunday,  February  20 
1921,  Howard  Scott  outlined  the  key  to  North  America's  unique  soc- 
ial problem.  It  is  still  the  same  problem,  grown  ponderous  and  men- 
acing with  the  passing  years,  and  Technocracy's  social  synthesis  is 
still  the  only  answer,  its  correctness  proven  by  ensuing  history. 


THERE  is  no  insurmountable 
problem  ahead  of  the  Ameri- 
can people,'  said  Howard  Scott. 
'We  can  have  prosperity  just  as 
soon  as  we  are  willing  to  go  after 
it.  It  isn't  necessary  to  wait  a 
single  month  for  Europe.  Forget 
the  German  idemnity.  As  for 
Congress,  let  Congress  go  ahead 
and  talk;  it  doesn't  matter.  All 
that  we  need  in  order  to  get  pros- 
perity is  sufficient  natural  wealth, 
sufficient  skill,  sufficient  indus- 
trial equipment,  sufficient  labor 
power,  and  intelligent  direction. 
We  have  all  of  these  things  ex- 
cept the  last,  and  there  is  no  rea- 
son under  the  sun  why  we  can't 
have  that — just  as  soon  as  the 
technicians  decide  to  get  togeth- 
er.' 

Howard  Scott  is  Chief  Engineer 
of  the  Technical  Alliance,  a  new 
organization,  with  very  modest 
headquarters  at  No.  23,  West  35th 
Street.  It  is  not  a  business  or 
commercial  organization.  It  does 
not  intend  to  direct  any  special 
enterprise.  It  is  exactly  what 
its  name  implies — an  attempt  to 
get  the  technical  men  of  all 
branches    of    American    industry 


together. 

'What  for?'  I  asked  Howard 
Scott. 

'To  find  out  what  the  Ameri- 
can people  want,'  he  answered, 
'and  to  get  it  for  them.' 

The  answer  was  simple  and  in- 
clusive, but  why  the  technical 
men?  Are  there  no  other  in- 
terests to  be  consulted? 

'The  technicians,'  Mr.  Scott  ex- 
plained, 'are  the  only  group  who 
know  how  people  get  things. 
They  are  not  the  only  producers 
but  they  are  the  only  ones  who 
know  how  production  is  accomp- 
lished. Bankers  don't  know. 
Politicians  and  diplomats  don't 
know.  If  these  fellows  did  know 
they  would  have  got  the  wheels 
started  before  this.  They  all  want 
production;  everybody  does.  But 
those  who  have  been  running 
things  don't  know  how  to  run 
them,  while  those  who  do  know 
bow  have  not  so  far  considered 
it  their  business.' 

It  took  a  long  time  to  get  even 
that  much  from  Howard  Scott. 
It  is  evident  that  newspaper  men 
rank  in  his  eye  somewhere  along 
with  financiers  and  diplomats.  He 


18 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


RUEI 


m$  H/*..      -'►»"«     HEW 


is  an  engineer,  and  he  wouldn't 
argue.  He  would  answer  ques- 
tions if  he  had  the  answer,  but  if 
he  didn't  have  it  he  would  ex- 
press no  views.  There  are  not 
two  'sides'  to  any  question  in  the 
minds  of  engineers  like  this.  If 
they  have  the  answer,  there  it  is. 
If  they  haven't,  the  only  thing  to 
do  is  go  and  get  it.  The  fact  that 
the  answer  is  still  unknown 
doesn't  permit  the  assumption 
that  there  is  more  than  one. 

Although  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance has  just  been  formed,  Mr 
Scott  has  been  working  at  the 
project  for  several  years.  Not 
trying  to  get  the  engineers  to- 
gether; that  is  not  an  engineer's 
method  of  forming  an  organiza- 
tion. He  has  been  getting  the 
problem  together.  He  has  been 
doing  research  work.  He  has 
been  gathering  data  and  making 
charts  showing  just  how  industry 
is  being  carried  on  today.  And, 
so  far  as  he  could,  he  has  been 
calculating  the  percentage  of 
waste. 

'The  whole  problem  may  be 
stated,'  he  said,  'as  the  problem 
of  the  elimination  of  waste.  But 
waste  to  an  engineer  has  a  dif- 
ferent meaning  than  it  has  to  the 
general  public.  People  generally 
think  of  waste  only  in  terms  of 
potato  peelings  or  of  spending 
money  for  what  they  hanker  for, 
instead   of   for  what   they   think 


they  ought  to  buy.  If  the  elimina- 
tion of  that  kind  of  waste  could 
solve  the  problem,  China  should 
be  the  richest  country  on  earth 
today.  But  the  engineer  recog- 
nizes that  idleness  is  waste,  that 
duplication  of  effort  is  waste,  and 
that  the  unnecessary  exhaustion 
of  any  natural  resource  is  waste. 

'If  we  can  eliminate  idleness 
and  duplication  of  effort,'  he  said, 
'we  may  have  immediate  pros- 
perity— such  prosperity  as  the 
world  has  never  known.  If  we 
can  find  a  way  then,  to  husband 
our  natural  resources,  we  may 
make  that  prosperity  permanent.' 

'Can  the  engineers  and  techni- 
cal men  do  this?'  I  asked. 

'If  they  can't,'  he  answered,  'no- 
body can.  Inasmuch,  however, 
as  that  is  only  one  thing  which 
they  are  trained  to  do,  the  prob- 
lem does  not  seem  difficult.  The 
simple  fact  is  that  they  have  not 
tackled  the  problem  up  to  date. 
They  have  been  trying,  with 
gratifying  success,  to  eliminate 
idleness  and  duplication  of  effort 
within  the  various  industries  in 
which  they  have  been  employed. 
But  so  far  they  have  not  thought 
of  American  industry;  which 
means,  practically,  that  they 
haven't  thought  of  it  as  engineers. 

'The  time  has  come,  however, 
when  the  engineer  must  do  ex- 
actly that.  We  are  reaching  a 
crisis,  and  the  technicians  are  the 


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only  people  who  can  find  out 
what  to  do.  They  must  survey 
the  whole  country,  tabulate  its 
resources,  discover  its  possibili- 
ties in  natural  and  human  power, 
uncover  the  present  wastes  and 
leakages,  and  work  out  a  tenta- 
tive design  of  co-ordinated  pro- 
duction   and    distribution.' 

'And  suppose  you  do  draw  up 
a  seemingly  workable  plan,'  I 
asked,  'what  are  you  going  to  do 
with  public  opinion?' 

Mr.  Scott  let  me  know  that  he 
was  vastly  bored. 

'It  is  all  a  technical  matter,' 
he  said.  'It  makes  not  the  slight- 
est difference  whether  the  public 
knows  about  it  or  not.  The  steam 
engine  didn't  need  a  press  agent. 
The  Einstein  Theory  doesn't  re- 
quire any  special  legislative  en- 
actment. If  the  only  people  who 
can  bring  order  out  of  our  pre- 
sent industrial  chaos  find  out  ex- 
actly how  to  do  the  job  we 
needn't  worry  about  the  next 
step.' 

'Won't  you  run  against  some 
political     difficulties?'     I   asked. 

'Yes,'  he  said.  'In  the  same  wav 
that  the  well  known  tide  ran 
against  political  difficulties  in  the 
person  of  His  Majesty  King  Can- 
ute. Politics  is  our  natural  ap- 
proach to  matters  which  we  don't 
understand.  When  we  know  ex- 
actly what  we  want  and  exactly 
how  to  get  it,  we  get  it.     If  we 


don't  know  what  we  want,  we 
vote  for  it  with  a  superstitious 
hope  that  a  change — any  sort  of 
change — will  bring  it  out  of  its 
hiding  place.  Mr.  Harding  was 
elected  by  an  overwhelming  ma- 
jority because  we  wanted  some- 
thing badly,  and  we  thought  that 
'normalcy'  might  be  it.  Had  we 
been  in  a  little  more  pain  we 
should  have  probably  elected 
Debs,  hoping  that  a  change  in 
ownership  would  somehow  work 
a  miracle.' 

'Isn't  the  question  of  ownership 
a  vital  one?'  I  asked. 

'No,'  he  answered.  'It  makes  no 
difference  who  owns  the  sun; 
what  concerns  us  vitally  is 
whether  we  use  it  properly  or 
not.  No  lovers  ever  quarrelled 
about  who  owns  the  moon. 
Neither  does  it  make  a  difference 
who  owns  the  earth — if  we  can 
only  discover  how  to  use  it.  Own- 
ership is  a  myth.  If  we  once  get 
to  using  our  coal  and  iron  and 
our  industrial  and  transportation 
systems  to  their  full  capacity,  no- 
body will  be  fool  enough  to  care 
whether  they  are  owned  or  not. 

'The  engineer  especially  is  not 
concerned  with  ownership.  Tech- 
nicians, as  such,  cannot  function 
in  politics.  Their  training  has 
placed  them  in  a  position  where 
decisions  are  the  result  of  intrin- 
sic fact,  and  not  of  personal  opin- 
ion, whether  autocratic  or  demo- 


20 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


Ifnfiplti'a 

iff 


■ 


cratic.  They  cannot  function  in 
finance  because  their  science  is 
one  of  production  and  utilization, 
not  one  of  title  or  credit.  They 
cannot  function  in  labor  unions 
as  at  present  organized  because 
these  unions  are  mere  political 
groups  in  which  the  individual 
member  functions  not  as  an  in- 
dividual responsible  for  a  cer- 
tain detail  of  the  industrial  pro- 
cess, but  as  a  voter  expressing 
some — usually  borrowed — opin- 
ion. 

"The  Technical  Alliance  is 
simply  an  attempt  to  organize  the 
technical  workers  on  their  jobs, 
instead  of  organizing  them  as  an 
academic  group  outside.  In  one 
sense  of  the  word,  this  may  be 
called  the  first  genuine  labor  or- 
ganization in  America;  for  every 
technician  is  engaged  in  strategic- 
ally important  labor  and  is  con- 
cerned primarily  with  the  organi- 
zation— that  is  the  coordination 
— of  industry. 

'Technical  men  must  necessar- 
ily look  on  industry  as  industry. 
The  central  purpose  of  industry, 
and  the  only  purpose  which  the 
engineer  as  such  can  pay  atten- 
tion to,  is  to  serve  humanity.  Mr. 
Gantt,  in  his  very  conservative 
estimates,  proved  that  our  pre- 
sent industrial  machine  is  not 
giving  more  than  20  percent  of 
the  service  it  is  capable  of  giving, 
primarily  because  the  machine  is 


controlled  by  business  groups 
for  business  ends  rather  than  by 
industrialists  for  industrial  ends. 
His  figures  were  actually  far  too 
high;  because,  with  the  elimin- 
ation of  the  business  motive 
would  come  the  elimination  of 
thousands  of  industries  now  en- 
gaged in  making  things  which 
only  business  organizations  need; 
and  because  with  the  machine 
once  operating  at  its  full  capacity 
there  would  be  such  an  abun- 
dance produced  for  everybody 
that  we  would  not  need  to  protect 
private  property  as  it  is  protect- 
ed today.' 

Mr.  Scott  is  anything  but  an 
enthusiast.  And  yet  I  have  never 
heard  an  irresponsible  soap- 
boxer make  more  staggering 
statements.  To  multiply  the  na- 
tion's wealth  by  ten,  without 
waiting  for  new  inventions  and 
without  considering  a  political 
move,  seemed  to  him  a  simple 
problem  for  the  engineers  when 
once  they  organize  as  engineers. 

For  lack  of  anything  better  to 
say,  I  asked  him  a  question  which 
every  advocate  of  a  new  order 
will  recognize  as  an  old  acquaint- 
ance. 

'Won't  you  have  to  change 
human  nature  first?' 

Mr.   Scott  smiled  dryly. 

'Did  they  have  to  change  hu- 
man nature,'  he  asked,  'in  order 
to  keep  passengers  from  standing 


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JANUARY,  1945 


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on  car  platforms?' 

'Go  on,'  I  said,  'I'm  listening.' 
'They  put  up  signs  first,'  he  con- 
tinued, 'prohibiting  the  danger- 
ous practice.  But  the  passengers 
still  crowded  on  the  platforms. 
Then  they  got  ordinances 
passed  and  the  platforms  remain- 
ed as  crowded  as  before.  Police- 
men, legislators,  public  service 
commissions,  all  took  a  hand,  but 
to  no  effect.  Then  the  problem 
was  put  up  to  the  engineer. 

'The  engineers  solved  it  easily. 
They  built  cars  that  didn't  have 
any  platforms.' 

According  to  Mr.  Scott  the 
same  course  will  have  to  be 
followed  in  the  matter  of  a  still 
more  familiar  prohibition:  Thou 
shalt  not  steal.  Church  and  state, 
he  says,  have  united  unanimous- 
ly throughout  all  history  behind 
this  law,  but  it  has  never  been 
enforced.  Technical  administra- 
tion alone,  he  maintains,  can  en- 
force it. 

How?  Let  him  answer  in  his 
own  words. 

'By  coordinating  the  industrial 
processes.  By  operating  all  in- 
dustries as  one  agency  for  one 
definite  purpose — producing  and 
distributing  the  things  that  people 
want  so  that  an  abundance  of 
everything  shall  be  accessible  to 
all. 

'Private  property,'  he  said,  'is 
generally  recognized  as  a  burden 


even  today;  and  few  people 
would  want  to  carry  it  if  they 
could  be  rich  without  having  to 
do  so.  For  the  first  time  in  his- 
tory though,  humanity  has  a  ma- 
chine at  hand  which  is  productive 
enough  to  make  everybody  rich, 
and  it  has  the  technical  know- 
ledge at  its  disposal  to  run  such 
a  machine.  All  that  is  necessary 
is  coordination.' 

'But  do  you  expect  the  engin- 
eers to  agree  upon  a  pro- 
gramme?' I  asked.  'They  have 
their  prejudices  and  differences, 
don't  they,  just  like  the  rest  of 
us?' 

"They  disagree  as  politicians,' 
he  said,  'but  not  as  engineers.  We 
are  not  trying  to  organize  them, 
however,  into  a  society  to  debate 
something,  but  into  an  alliance 
which  will  discover  the  facts.  En- 
gineers do  not  disagree  on  facts. 
They  all  know  which  direction 
a  stone  will  drop.  They  all  know 
that  a  straight  line  is  the  shortest 
distance  between  two  points.  If 
there  is  anything  else  they  want 
to  know  as  engineers,  they  find 
it  out;  and  when  they  find  it  out, 
there  isn't  the  slightest  disagree- 
ment. Engineers  are  not  radical 
or  conservative.  As  engineers 
they  are  no  more  radical  than  a 
yardstick  and  no  more  conserva- 
tive than  so  many  degrees  Fah- 
renheit.' 


22 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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Ring  Out  the  Old,  Ring  In  the  New 

Vancouver's  street  railway  system  is  a  familiar  example  of  the  sabot- 
age of  technology  by  the  Price  System.  Only  under  the  functional 
economy  projected  by  Technocracy  can  we  make  full  use  of  modern 
technological  advances  in  transportation. 


IN  chapter  21  of  the  Technoc- 
racy Study  Course  appears  this 
passage:  'Every  time  new  equip- 
ment is  devised,  or  old  equipment 
redesigned,  the  newer  operates, 
in  general,  faster  and  more  auto- 
matically than  its  predecessor, 
and  since,  as  yet,  the  accomplish- 
ments in  this  direction  are  small 
compared  with  the  possibilities, 
it  is  certain  that  this  trend  will 
continue  also  into  the  future.' 

To  illustrate  the  above  quoted 
material  we  have  in  Vancouver 
a  familiar  example  in  the  rolling 
stock  of  the  street  railway  sys- 
tem. 

There  are  two  major  distinc- 
tions in  the  types  of  cars  operated 
by  the  British  Columbia  Electric 
Railway  Co.  Ltd.  The  first  is 
between  all  earlier  types  and  the 
new  streamlined  Presidents'  Con- 
ference Committee  cars  (PCC's). 
The  second  is  that  between  two- 
man  cars  and  one-man  cars. 

The  B.  C.  Electric  operates  321 
cars  on  the  street  railways  of  this 
city.  Of  this  number  there  are  219 
two-man  cars,  10  two-car  trains 
with  a  motorman  and  two  con- 
ductors    each,    and   82   one-man 


cars,  while  21  of  the  one-man 
cars  are  of  the  up-to-date  PCC 
class. 

The  history  of  the  PCC  car 
dates  back  to  1931  when  the 
Presidents'  Conference  Commit- 
tee was  organized  by  the  transit 
industry  for  the  purpose  of  de- 
signing new  rolling  stock.  This 
Committee  after  considerable  re- 
search drew  up  the  specifications 
for  an  entirely  new  type  of  veh- 
icle, and  directed  that  a  trial 
model  be  constructed.  The  end 
result  was  so  successful  that  it 
subsequently  led  to  the  produc- 
tion of  such  cars  on  a  large  scale. 

Later  models  of  the  car 
brought  further  improvements, 
so  that  by  the  time  the  B.  C. 
Electric  bought  its  first  one  in 
1938,  it  had  reached  a  high  point 
of  efficiency.  In  1941  three  more 
were  purchased;  and  finally  in 
the  spring  of  1944  after  much  de- 
lay due  to  wartime  exigencies  the 
last  seventeen  arrived. 

These  cars  are  a  radical  depart- 
ure from  anything  which  has  ever 
before  been  constructed  in  the 
way  of  streetcars.  The  men  who 
designed    them    carried    to    their 


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JANUARY,  1945 


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task  no  preconceived  ideas  of 
how  the  job  should  be  done.  They 
combined  their  various  skills  in 
the  building  of  a  vehicle  which 
would  meet  all  the  requirements 
desired  by  the  transit  industry 
and  came  up  with  the  PCC,  the 
technological  answer  to  a  physi- 
cal  problem. 

Let  us  consider  some  of  the 
major  comparisons  between  the 
PCC's  and  the  earlier  models. 
The  PCC  is  much  lighter  than 
any  of  its  predecessors,  weighing 
34,700  pounds,  where  the  previ- 
ous types  range  from  39,300  to 
49,000  pounds.  The  new  car's 
length  is  46  feet  against  39  feet  to 
48  feet  8  inches — with  an  average 
of  43  to  44  feet — in  the  old  cars. 
In  width  there  is  little  difference, 
the  PCC's  outside  measurement 
being  8'4"  and  that  of  the  earlier 
types  being  8'4"  to  8'11".  When 
considering  the  height  of  the  cars, 
it  is  not  necessary  to  consider  the 
overall  height,  but  only  that  from 
the  track  to  the  floor  of  the  car, 
as  it  is  in  this  distance  that  the 
principal  technological  differ- 
ences occur.  Above  that,  the 
differences  are  those  of  style  de- 
signs. The  earlier  cars  measure 
from  29  to  34  inches  from  the 
ground  to  the  vestibule  floor,  and 
to  this  must  be  added  another  6 
or  7  inches  to  reach  the  passenger 
floor.  A  PCC  car  has  the  same 
height  from  one  end  to  the  other 


— 30  inches — so  its  mechanics  are 
therefore  much  more  compact 
than  on  the  other  cars. 

In  the  matter  of  passenger 
capacity  one  can  only  compare 
the  number  of  seats  provided,  as 
these  are  definite  figures.  Rough- 
ly speaking,  any  car  has  the  same 
standing  as  seating  capacity. 
Early  models  varied  widely  in 
their  passenger  capacities — any- 
where from  36  to  55  seats.  All 
the  B.  C.  Electric  PCC  cars  have 
52  seats. 

The  big  distinctive  feature  be- 
tween the  PCC  car  and  all  of  its 
predecessors  is  in  the  method  of 
operation.  Prior  to  the  institu- 
tion of  the  PCC,  all  cars  were 
manually  controlled — the  motor- 
man  had  to  effect  the  whole  op- 
eration by  hand.  The  control 
lever  by  which  the  amount  of 
power  required  to  operate  the 
car  is  governed,  had  an  average 
of  15  'notches'  or  points  of  resist- 
ance which  had  to  be  met  separ- 
ately before  the  motor  could  uti- 
lize the  full  load  of  electricity. 
The  smoothness  or  roughness  of 
the  acceleration  was  largely  de- 
termined by  the  motorman's  dex- 
terity in  passing  from  one  point 
to  the  next. 

This  feature  is  overcome  in 
the  design  of  the  PCC.  Though 
it  is  still  necessary  to  feed  the 
motor  gradually,  this  is  effected 
much  more  smoothly.    There  are 


24 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


*.•- 


■       ■ 


nearly  100  points  of  resistance  on 
this  car's  control  which  are  met 
automatically  when  the  acceler- 
ator is  depressed  by  the  opera- 
tor's foot  in  the  same  manner  as 
that  on  an  automobile.  The  auto- 
maticity  of  this  acceleration 
makes  for  much  smoother  opera- 
tion than  manual  methods  allow. 
The  brake,  operated  manually 
on  all  earlier  cars,  is  substituted 
in  the  PCC  by  an  automobile- 
like foot  brake.  The  operator 
has  the  free  use  of  his  hand  to 
take  care  of  tickets  and  to  tend 
to  other  business  pertinent  to  the 
car's  operation.  Besides  the  foot 
accelerator  and  brake,  there  are 
further  electrical  improvements 
in  design  arranged  to  simplify 
the   operator's  work. 

The  second  major  point  of  dis- 
tinction in  types  of  rolling  stock 
in  Vancouver  is  in  that  of  per- 
sonnel required  on  the  cars — the 
difference  between  cars  operated 
by  two  men  and  those  operated 
by  one  man.  When  the  matter 
arises  concerning  the  superiority 
of  either  of  these  cars  over  the 
other,  there  are  two  important 
questions  one  might  ask:  (1)  Can 
the  one-man  car  handle  crowds 
as  quickly  as  the  two-man  car? 
(2)  Is  the  one-man  car  as  safe  as 
the  two-man  car? 

The  experience  of  the  B.  C. 
Electric  has  been  that  there  is 
little  material  difference  between 


the  two  types  in  their  ability  to 
handle  crowds.  This  situation  is 
accounted  for  by  the  fact  that 
generally  speaking  on  a  two-man 
car  one  crew  member  is  idle 
while  the  other  is  working, 
whereas  on  the  one-man  car,  the 
operator  by  fulfilling  both  con- 
ductor and  motorman  capacities 
is  busy  the  full  time.  Inasmuch 
as  the  loading  time  represents 
only  a  minor  fraction  of  the  total 
trip  time,  any  discrepancy  is 
easily  offset  by  the  one-man 
car's  running  time.  At  heavy 
loading  or  transfer  points  curb 
conductors  are  employed  to  facili- 
tate arid  expedite  loading,  but 
as  these  men  assist  on  both  types 
of  car,  the  one-man  car  gains  no 
advantage  thereby.  Moreover, 
the  PCC's  rapid  acceleration 
helps  counterbalance  whatever 
loading  deficiencies  it  might  in- 
herit by  virtue  of  being  a  one- 
man  car.  Other  cars  require 
approximately  half  their  be- 
tween-stop  running  time  to  accel- 
erate to  normal  speed,  then  are 
required  to  slow  down  the  re- 
mainder of  the  distance.  The 
PCC,  however,  attains  its  peak 
running  speed  almost  immediate- 
ly and  sustains  it  till  the  next 
loading  point  is  reached  when  a 
swift  smooth  stop  is  effected. 

In  further  substantiation  of  the 
one-man  car's  case,  it  may  be 
pointed  out  that  Toronto,  a  city 


JANUARY,  1945 


25 


of  nearly  triple  Vancouver's 
population  confined  to  approxi- 
mately the  same  area  with  a  con- 
sequently much  greater  traffic 
congestion,  runs  a  street  railway 
system  on  which  from  75  to  80 
percent  of  all  miles  operated  are 
covered  by  one-man  cars,  includ- 
ing a  large  proportion  of  PCC 
cars.  No  inconvenience  has  been 
suffered  by  such  operation  in 
Toronto  or  in  other  Canadian  or 
American  cities  which  utilize 
these  cars  either  completely  or 
in  large  proportion.  Also,  most 
cities  operate  a  number  of 
motor  buses  either  as  their  total 
transportation  system  or  as  an 
auxiliary  to  the  street  railway. 
They  are  designed  as  one-man 
vehicles,  and,  satisfactorily  ful- 
filling their  function  as  such,  it  is 
neither  intended  nor  suggested 
that  their  personnel  be  doubled. 
It  is  equally  incongruous  to  sug- 
gest the  establishment  of  two- 
man  personnel  on  cars  specifical- 
ly designed  for  one-man  opera- 
tion, such  as  the  PCC  cars. 

Is  the  one-man  car  as  safe  as 
the  two-man  car?  Statistics  pro- 
vide an  indisputable  answer  to 
this  question.  According  to  the 
B.  C.  Electric  Railway's  1943  re- 
cords, which  are  the  last  avail- 
able, two-man  cars  showed  a  40 
percent  higher  accident  rate  than 
one-man  cars.  The  reason  is 
easily    understood.     In    two-man 


cars,  there  is  a  bell-cord  signal 
system  between  motorman  and 
conductor  operated  by  the  latter 
to  indicate  when  to  stop  to  allow 
passengers  on  and  off,  and  when 
to  start  again.  A  mistake  of  the 
conductor  in  signalling,  or  a  mis- 
understanding by  the  motorman 
of  a  signal  or  his  failure  to  com- 
ply with  one  may  result  in  an 
accident. 

This  situation  does  not  obtain 
in  the  one-man  car.  In  this  case, 
the  operator  has  full  responsibili- 
ty for  the  running  of  his  car,  and 
need  not  rely  on  signals  from 
another  quarter.  His  instrument 
panel  indicates  when  the  rear 
exits  are  clear,  so  as  soon  as  he 
has  dispensed  with  the  incoming 
passengers,  his  attention  is  un- 
divided for  the  actual  car  opera- 
tion. 

All  equalities  or  advantages 
which  one-man  cars  in  general 
have  with  or  over  two-man  cars 
accrue  to  the  PCC,  which  com- 
bines them  with  its  own  inherent 
technical  superiority  to  make  it 
the  finest  streetcar  in  use  today. 

In  the  face  of  the  foregoing 
evidence  there  can  be  only  one 
real  reason  for  insistence  on  the 
use  of  two-man  cars — and  that 
is  economic.  One-man  cars,  uti- 
lizing only  half  the  personnel, 
drastically  reduce  employment 
and  purchasing  power.  Thus  the 
conductors  and  motormen  of  the 


26 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


V,--      rafts 


■  ■ 
■ 


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I ' .  ■  H  - 1  s*i"  •  I     GkR 

H9 


HMB 


two-man  cars  are  extremely  re- 
luctant to  allow  the  complete  in- 
stitution of  an  improved  trans- 
portation system  which  would 
have  a  disastrous  effect  on  their 
means   of   livelihood. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  B.  C. 
Electric  has  its  own  particular 
problem.  It  has  been  asked  to 
improve  its  service  and  to  reduce 
its  fares.  The  only  way  to  do 
this  is  by  reducing  its  operating 
costs,  which  in  turn  can  be 
brought  about  only  by  improved 
technological  methods.  The  in- 
stitution of  PCC  cars  has  both 
improved  the  service  and  cut 
down  the  operating  costs,  but  it 
would  require  much  greater  use 
of  them  to  result  in  a  fare  reduc- 
tion. It  is  purely  good  business 
for  the  public  utility  company  to 
install  more  efficient  technology 
to  fulfil  its  needs,  and  it  is  pure- 
ly incidental  that  this  results  in 
manpower  reduction. 

Neither  upon  employees  for 
wishing  the  continuance  of  two- 
man  operation  nor  upon  employer 
for  wishing  its  discontinuance 
can  blame  be  attached,  but  solely 
upon  the  modus  operandi  of  the 
Price  System,  which  has  ever 
rendered  compatibility  between 
technical  improvement  and  eco- 
nomic security  absolutely  impos- 
sible. 

The  PCC's  are  great  cars,  but 
their   full    advantage    cannot   be 


appreciated  as  long  as  obsolete 
rolling  stock  continues  to  oper- 
ate. They  are  now  required  to 
regulate  their  schedules  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  slower  veh- 
icles on  the  line,  but  if  a  whole 
system  of  PCC  cars  were  instal- 
led, faster  schedules  could  be  ar- 
ranged to  afford  the  public  the 
better  service  it  requests. 

So  it  is  with  the  whole  tech- 
nology of  North  America.  New 
machines  being  put  to  work  per- 
form their  jobs  faster  and  better 
than  those  they  are  replacing, 
with  inevitable  reductions  in 
man-hours  per  unit  produced  and 
consequent  lowering  of  purchas- 
ing power.  The  new  machines 
are  obliged  largely  to  gear  them- 
selves to  the  production  rates  of 
their  less  efficient  predecessors 
and  also  to  operate  within  the 
narrowly  confined  restrictions 
and  limitations  of  the  Price  Sys- 
tem. Removal  of  these  barriers 
would  free  technology  from  its 
bonds  and  allow  it  to  build  that 
plentiful  security  which  can  only 
be  attained  through  its  unre- 
stricted use. 

Shall  we  allow  our  technology 
to  transport  us  freely  and  swiftly 
to  the  abundance  which  can  be 
ours,  or  shall  we  allow  our  Price 
System  brake  to  delay  our  arrival 
at  North  America's  technological 
rendezvous  with   destiny? 

— R.  N.  Urquhart 


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JANUARY,  1945 


27 


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The  Battle  of  Synthetics 


Total  War  has  speeded  victories  of  synthetics  against  Mother  Nature 
and  transformed  the  world  since  1939.  North  Americans  in  particular, 
must  prepare  to  move  forward  with  the  march  of  technology. 


RESEARCH  men  are  building 
a  new  world  where  no  old 
rules  hold.  We  are  in  for  trouble 
unless  our  postwar  planners 
wake  up  to  this  fact.  These  plan- 
ners foresee  a  new  international- 
ism, founded  on  an  enormous  ex- 
change of  goods  in  a  free  and 
open  market.  The  idea  is  plaus- 
ible, but  there  is  a  glaring  flaw 
to  it. 

Much  of  this  thinking  is  based 
on  prewar  facts.  It  presupposes 
that  we  shall  want  and  need  all 
the  natural  products  that  were 
formerly  great  articles  of  com- 
merce. In  cold  fact,  we  don't 
want  many  of  these  products — 
and  shall  never  want  them  again. 
And  to  assume  that  we  do  will 
be  a  fatal  blunder  in  our  new 
international  thinking. 

Take  the  case  of  rubber.  Mil- 
lions of  people  in  the  Far  East 
depend  on  natural  rubber  for  a 
livelihood.  Here  at  home  we 
have  built  a  synthetic  industry. 
One  plant  produces  90,000  tons  of 
synthetic  rubber  a  year,  employ- 


Reprinted   from    Collier's   hy   kind  per- 
mission of  the  publishers  and  author. 


28 


ing  1,500  men.  To  produce  a 
similar  tonnage  of  natural  rub- 
ber in  Malaya  would  require 
100,000  workers!  Are  we  to  scrap 
this  plant  to  make  jobs  in  Java, 
Sumatra  and  Malaya?  Not  likely! 

In  the  battle  of  land  versus 
laboratory,  the  laboratory  always 
wins.  Take  a  classic  example — 
the  story  of  natural  versus  syn- 
thetic indigo. 

It  took  Adolph  von  Baeyer  22 
years  to  reproduce  in  the  labora- 
tory the  blue  coloring  substance 
of  the  indigo  plant.  When  syn- 
thetic indigo  appeared  in  1897,  a 
million  and  a  half  acres  were  de- 
voted to  growing  indigo  plants  in 
India  alone;  the  crop  was  worth 
$42  million.  Within  15  years 
natural  indigo  had  all  but  van- 
ished, but  the  world's  textile  in- 
dustries were  using,  not  7  million 
pounds  of  natural  dye  as  before 
but  18  million  pounds  of  the  coal- 
tar  product,  paying  for  it,  not  the 
old  natural  price  of  $100  million 
but  at  the  new  chemical  price — 
only  $25  million,  more  than 
double  the  dye  for  a  quarter  the 
price.  These  figures  are  all  in 
terms  and  price  of  indigotine,  the 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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essential  coloring  principle  of  in- 
digo, which  is  the  only  true  basis 
of  comparison. 

Ever  since  the  chubby  Count 
de  Chardonnet  made  the  first 
artificial  silk,  and  that  rawboned 
Albany  printer,  John  Hyatt,  con- 
cocted the  first  imitation  ivory, 
chemists  have  been  perfecting 
this  technique  of  making  new 
synthetic  products  to  replace 
natural  materials — then  making 
them  better  and  cheaper.  Their 
man-made  products  are  actually 
new  materials,  with  specific 
properties  better  for  particular 
uses  than  any  natural  material. 
Given  only  a  toe-hold  in  the  mar- 
ket, they  win  because  they  repre- 
sent progress. 

Natural  vanilla's  losing  battle 
with  vanillin  gives  us  a  clearer 
understanding  of  the  intercom- 
modity  rivalries  that  will  upset 
world  trade  tomorrow. 

In  1875  De  Laire  in  France 
and  Tiemann  in  Germany  patent- 
ed, within  a  few  weeks,  two  dif- 
ferent processes  for  the  chemical 
preparation  of  vanillin.  The  new 
synthetic  was  offered  for  sale  at 
$80  a  pound.  With  vanilla 
beans  selling  at  $2.50  a  pound, 
that  seemed  ridiculous.  But  it 
takes  175  pounds  of  grade  A 
beans  to  produce  a  single  pound 
of  vanillin,  the  active  flavoring 
principle.  In  other  words,  a 
pound     of     natural     vanillin     in 


beans  costs  normally  about  $450. 
Its  chemical  duplicate  synthetic 
vanillin  at  $80  was,  after  all,  a 
pretty  good  buy. 

In  the  following  half  century 
the  price  of  vanillin  was  gradual- 
ly reduced  from  $80  to  $8;  and 
has  since  dropped  to  $2.  The 
beans  have  kept  a  place  in  the 
housewife's  extract  bottle;  vanil- 
lin has  captured  the  vastly  great- 
er industrial  markets. 

One  of  the  nastiest  headaches 
of  any  manufacturer  is  caused  by 
sharp  fluctuations  in  the  cost  of 
his  raw  materials.  They  upset 
his  plans  and  raise  havoc  with 
profits.  Production  of  chemical 
materials  is  not  varied  by  heat  or 
frost,  flood  or  drought,  plagues 
of  insects  or  blights  of  disease. 
They  are  less  disturbed  by  man- 
made  wars  and  revolutions,  ship- 
ping pools  or  currency  juggling, 
by  speculative  buying  or  corners 
of  available  stocks.  And  never 
forget  that  the  trend  of  chemical 
prices  is  inevitably  downwards. 
As  far  back  as  authentic  Ameri- 
can records  exist,  the  chemical 
price  curve  has  come  down  (save 
only  in  wartime),  from  an  index 
number -of  428  in  1800  to  93  in 
1940,  while  the  price  of  'all 
commodities'  registered  then  118 
and  now  112. 

With  these  three  examples  in 
mind — indigo,  vanillin,  and  rub- 
ber— -examine     a    clause    in    the 


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JANUARY,  1945 


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Rio  de  Janeiro  Act.  We  pledged 
ourselves  to  'avoiding  in  so  far 
as  possible  the  establishment  or 
expansion  of  production  of  sub- 
stitute or  synthetic  commodities, 
which  is  economically  artificial 
and  might  displace  the  consump- 
tion of  natural  products  available 
in  other  American  nations.'  The 
remainder  of  that  resolution  is  an 
escape  clause  that  is  very  broad. 

That  astonishing  promise  com- 
mits us  to  a  policy  of  thwarting 
scientific  progress.  It  simply  can- 
not stand  up.  We  are  in  the 
midst  of  a  chemical  revolution 
and  we  have  to  reckon  with 
chemical  values. 

To  help  make  that  Rio  de  Jan- 
eiro Act  effective,  we  have  been 
pouring  millions  into  Brazil,  not 
only  to  revive  the  collection  of 
wild  rubber,  but  also  to  establish 
new  rubber  plantations.  It  is  a 
quite  grandiose  plan  involving 
the  forced  migration  of  several 
hundred  thousand  native  labor- 
ers, housing  schemes,  medical  and 
sanitation  projects,  elaborate  re- 
search laboratories,  and  improv- 
ing the  navigability  of  the 
world's  largest  river  system.  We 
are  told  that  this  lavish  Brazilian 
rubber  subsidy  is  a  measure  of 
hemisphere  defense.  Obviously, 
some  of  its  collateral  expendi- 
tures are  a  humanitarian  gesture 
of  good  neighborliness.  Neither 
reason      nor     sentiment     makes 


sense. 

Remember  that  synthetic  rub- 
ber is  a  fact,  not  a  theory.  My 
conservative  friends  in  the  rub- 
ber industry  forecast  a  synthetic 
that  will  cost  less  than  15  cents 
a  pound  and  make  a  nonskid, 
puncture-blowout-proof  tire  good 
for  100,000  miles.  Real  enthusi- 
asts talk  glibly  about  rubberlike 
materials  so  cheap  that  we  will 
smear  them  over  our  streets,  a 
paving  that  will  be  impervious 
to  frost,  skidproof  and  noiseless. 
What  will  natural  rubber  be 
worth  then? 

That  will  be  a  life-and-death 
question  throughout  Malaya,  Su- 
matra and  Indo-China.  Why  drag 
Brazil  into  this  political-chemical 
whirlpool?  By  greedy  extermina- 
tion of  the  wild  trees,  she  elim- 
inated herself  from  the  rubber 
market  years  ago.  Rubber  is  no 
longer  an  asset  upon  which  she 
depends  for  income  or  export 
tax. 

So  far  as  rubber  is  concerned, 
our  Rio  pledge  cannot  and  will 
not  be  fulfilled.  When  the  State 
Department  was  asked  bluntly 
if  it  meant  the  scrapping  of  our 
synthetic  rubber  plants,  the  dip- 
lomatic reply  was  that  this  is  all 
a  matter  of  hemisphere  policy. 
Is  it  wise  policy  to  make  a  false 
promise  to  a  good  neighbor? 

Any  technological  advance  can 
profoundly  influence    either    do- 


30 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


mestic  or  world  economy.  Take 
a  case  right  here  at  home.  As 
tractors  replaced  horses  and 
mules  on  American  farms,  these 
animals  declined  in  number;  we 
had  20  million  horses  in  1910, 
half  that  number  in  1940.  In  this 
same  period  mules  dropped  from 
5.4  millions  to  3.8  millions.  With 
what  result?  Remember  the 
wails  of  the  '30's  about  overpro- 
duction of  farm  crops — corn, 
oats,  hay?  Yet  production  of 
these  crops  stood  at  about  the 
same  levels  as  they  did  in  1910. 
Horses  or  mules  might  have  eat- 
en this  overproduction,  but  trac- 
tors couldn't.  Still,  we  didn't  try 
to  legislate  tractors  out  of  exist- 
ence. 

Or  take  another  case.  During 
the  last  war  we  depended  on 
Chile's  natural  nitrates  to  make 
our  munitions  and  fertilize  our 
fields.  Then  we  built  a  vast  syn- 
thetic industry  which  could  fix 
atmospheric  nitrogen.  From  an 
importer  we  turned  into  an  ex- 
porter— and  Chile  nearly  went  on 
the  financial  rocks. 

At  the  present  time  we  are 
taking  a  political  approach  to 
problems  of  this  nature  that  will 
arise  in  the  postwar  years.  We 
would  be  on  much  safer  ground 
if  we  took  a  chemical  approach. 

Cotton  is  a  good  example  of 
the  chemical  approach.  In  the 
'30's  the  bureaucrats  pegged  the 

JANUARY,  1945 


price  to  save  the  planters.  They 
figured  that  cotton  ought  to  be 
worth  ten  cents  a  pound  to  give 
the  cotton  planter  'parity  value.' 
They  simply  ignored  'chemical 
value.'  Although  set  with  the 
best  intentions,  the  pegged  price 
robbed  the  cotton  planter  of  mar- 
kets by  promoting  the  use  of 
wood  cellulose  in  rayon,  lacquers 
and  plastics.  Long  before  the 
present  war  the  best  truck  tires 
were  made  with  high-tensile  ray- 
on cord,  which  had  been  tested 
and  proved  superior  to  cotton 
duck.  Yet  just  this  last  summer, 
the  farm  bloc  raised  a  great  hul- 
labaloo to  forbid  the  Army  to 
specify  rayon  in  its  heavy-duty 
tires! 

The  cotton  market  cannot  be 
saved  by  legislation.  It  might, 
however,  be  saved-  by  research. 
The  late  Doctor  Charles  H. 
Herty,  a  chemist  and  a  Georgian 
with  an  abiding  faith  in  the  New 
South,  calculated  that  with  cellu- 
lose from  wood  pulp  at  four 
cents,  cotton  is  not  worth  more 
than  five  cents  gold. 

A  dime  or  a  nickel  a  pound? 
Plenty  of  leeway  there!  Govern- 
ment planners,  using  tax  money 
for  subsidies,  artificially  main- 
tained their  parity  price  within 
this  country.  Then  Brazil  and 
Egypt  and  India  began  growing 
more  cotton.  The  price  in  open 
international     markets     adjusted 


31 


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itself  to  within  a  tiny  fraction  of 
five  cents  gold.  Here  is  a  plain 
fact  for  farmers  and  planners  to 
ponder  soberly.  Though  govern- 
tment  control  has  held  up  the 
domestic  price  of  cotton,  it  has 
been  powerless  to  stop  technical 
progress.  Chemical  values  have 
prevailed. 

The  rayon  maker  substituted 
wood  pulp  for  cotton  linters.  The 
rayon  industry  grew  like  Jack's 
beanstalk  and  between  1932  and 
1942  it  increased  its  consumption 
of  wood  pulp  from  43,000  tons  to 
280,500  tons,  of  cotton  linters 
from  31,000  to  49,000  tons. 

The  story  of  how  cotton  has 
lost  ground  to  wood  as  a  source 
of  cellulose  is  only  one  of  many 
such  stories.  This  global  war 
has  pitchforked  us  into  new  re- 
searches and  turned  up  many 
similar  substitutes. 

The  Japs  grabbed  the  world 
supplies  of  quinine  and  tin,  of 
insecticides  and  cinnamon.  To 
fight  in  malaria-infested  jungles 
quinine  is  as  necessary  as  am- 
munition, and  we  turned  to  the 
coal-tar  synthetic,  atabrine.  It 
does  control  chills  and  fever,  but 
it  has  serious  after-effects  upon 
the  patient,  so  a  nation-wide 
hunt  in  the  laboratories  to  syn- 
thesize the  complex  quinine 
molecule  was  begun,  and  it  end- 
ed in  another  chemical  triumph 
— real  synthetic  quinine. 


What  is  to  happen  to  this  tin- 
addicted  nation  is  a  question  that 
your  pantry  shelf,  with  its  array 
of  bottles,  fiber  boxes  and  plastic 
jars  has  already  answered. 

Next  to  salt  and  pepper,  cinna- 
mon is  the  most  important  condi- 
ment, and  it  comes  from  Jap-held 
Ceylon,  Indo-China  and  the 
Netherlands  Indies.  But  Doctor 
Ernest  Crocker,  of  the  Arthur  D. 
Little  Laboratories,  blended  syn- 
thetic flavors  to  make  an  ersatz 
cinnamon. 

The  pulverized  flowers  of  py- 
rethrum  make  an  almost  univer- 
sally used  bug  killer.  It  comes 
from  China,  and  the  international 
market  has  long  been  controlled 
by  the  big  Japanese  trading 
houses.  Because  it  is  harmless 
to  people,  it  is  the  best  insecti- 
cide' for  fruits  and  vegetables. 

The  dangerously  short  supply 
is  eked  out  with  synthetics;  one 
from  pine  oil  was  discovered  by 
Hercules  Powder;  another  from 
coal  tar  by  Du  Pont;  a  third  from 
petroleum  by  Shell  Oil.  Already 
two  of  these  are  proved  to  have 
greater  bug-killing  power  than 
pyrethrum.  Others  are  being 
developed  in  the  laboratories. 

When  the  war  is  over,  are  we 
going  to  want  Java's  quinine, 
Ceylon's  cinnamon,  China's  py- 
rethrum? Not  likely.  Or  will 
our  own  rayon  industry  prefer 
cellulose  from  cotton    linters    to 


32 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


cellulose  in  the  form  of  American 
or  Canadian  wood  pulp?  We 
know  the  answer  here.  Our  post- 
war planners  had  best  keep  these 
things  in  mind.  They  cannot 
stop  the  war  between  land  and 
laboratory,  nor  can  they  stay  the 
victory  of  the  laboratory.  Wheth- 
er we  like  the  inevitable  upsets 
or  not,  we  are  going  to  have  to 
live  with  them. 

From  these  facts  it  is  apparent 
that  we  can't  use  prewar  econo- 
my in  setting  up  a  postwar  world. 
Our  synthetic  rubber  industry 
will  mean  millions  of  unemploy- 
ed in  the  Far  East;  and  the  ex- 


panded wood-pulp  industry  can 
spell  havoc  to  Southern  cotton 
farms. 

The  great  plantations  of  rub- 
ber and  quinine,  the  orchards  of 
tung  trees,  the  fields  of  pyreth- 
rum  have  increased  the  ancient 
problem  of  feeding  the  people  of 
the  East.  The  most  elementary 
plan  for  a  brave  new  world  must 
encompass  an  abundance  of  food. 
To  help  release  industrial  acres 
throughout  that  vast  area  of 
chronically  undernourished  pop- 
ulations is  a  realistic  approach  to 
peace  and  plenty. 

— Williams  Haynes 


Postwar  Planners  Please  Note! 

•^T  WASHINGTON — Beneath  this  town's  hectic  flush  of  military  victory  and  eco- 
nomic boom  lies  a  dark  and  brooding  pessimism.  The  nation,  as  it  is  reflected  in 
its  capital,  believes  in  victory  but  it  does  not  believe  in  the  boom.  The  dominating 
mood  of  the  United  States  is  fear  of  the  future  and  no  one  has  been  able  to  break 
this  mood. 

The  paramount  fact  of  American  politics  today  is  the  great  depression  and  the 
paramount  fear  is  that  it  will  return.  This  fear  is  shared  by  the  big  businessmen 
who  expect  the  government  to  wreck  free  enterprise,  by  the  most  radical  New 
Dealer  who  expects  free  enterprise  to  wreck  the  New  Deal  and  by  the  poorest 
taxi  driver  who,  earning  an  executive's  wages  today,  wonders  if  he  will  have  a  job 
on   the  morrow   of   peace.  — Bruce   Hutchison 

*  ONE  CAN  LIVE  FORTY  DAYS  without  food,  four  days  without  water,  but  not 
four  minutes  without  air.  Which  is  the  more  valuable  commodity?  But  air  is  so 
abundant  that  it  cannot  be  capitalized  and  sold.  Every  commodity  made  by  mass 
production  is  headed  toward  the  status  of  air.  Sooner  or  later  it  will  reach  a  point 
where  it  will  not  function  in  a  profit  economy  founded  on  scarcity.  Overproduction, 
unmanageable  surpluses,  show  that  many  commodities  have  already  reached  that 
point.  It  is,  then,  either  a  new  system  consistent  with  the  age  of  power,  or  back  a 
hundred  terrible  years  to  genuine  scarcity.     My  money  is  on  the  new  system. 

,  — Stuart  Chase 

■^  MORE  THAN  30,000,000  workers  who  are  not  covered  by  state  job  insurance 
schemes  are  given  the  alternative  of  selling  apples  on  street  corners  or  starving. 

Other  millions  receive  inadequate  benefits  for  brief  periods,  and  then,  too,  they 
join  breadlines  or  go  hungry. 

Congressmen  who  were  guilty  of  this  monstrosity  may  have  cause  for  regret.  It  is 
entirely  possible  that  Americans  who  sacrificed  to  make  a  reality  of  the  Four  Free- 
doms— including  the  Freedom  from  Want — may  not  starve  quietly. 

— Railroad  Telegrapher 


JANUARY,  1945 


33 


The  Culture  of  Abundance 


The  culture  of  the  past  has  been  the  culture  of  toil,  poverty,  starva- 
tion, and  misery.  The  culture  of  tomorrow  must  be  something  new, 
and  its  general  form  will  be  laid  down  by  the  pattern  of  technology 
on  this  Continent.  Our  art,  our  philosophy,  our  literature,  must  be  a 
reflection  of  the  technology  and  the  abundance  of  the  New  America. 


One 

TECHNOCRACY  proves  in 
theory  what  in  practice  it 
will  provide — abundance.  It 
points  to  the  great  four-lane 
highway  into  the  future,  which 
man  has  constructed  but  which 
he  refuses  to  use,  and  says:  'Why 
do  you  bump  over  detours  of  de- 
pression and  debt  and  political 
revolution  and  fascism  and  war, 
when  you  might  drive  the  super- 
charged car  of  Technocracy  into 
the  future  that  is  already  here? 
See,  the  road  is  built!' 

If  humanity  is  not  merely  to 
endure  in  retrogression  but  to 
continue  in  living  growth,  that 
question  must  be  answered  by 
obeying  it.  And  it  will  be  obey- 
ed. Human  need  is  a  passenger 
that  will  not  consent  forever  to 
be  jolted  into  deeper  ruts  and 
muddier  by-ways:  the  driver  will 
have  to  relinquish  the  wheel  if 
he  refuses,  through  ignorance  or 
design,  to  take  the  obvious  road. 


Reprinted   from    Technocracy    A-ll,    by 
kind   permissi&n    of   CHQ. 


Abundance  is  here;  the  mastery 
of  abundance  must  come. 

But  that  is  not  my  concern 
now.  I  take  present  abundance 
for  granted  and  future  mastery 
of  abundance  for  granted,  and 
turn  to  a  question  that  as  yet  has 
scarcely  been  asked  and  certainly 
never  answered:  What  will  be 
the  culture  of  abundance? 

Two 

The  great  mistake  of  the  cul- 
ture which  we  now  call  'modern' 
is  that  it  looks  backward  toward 
death  and  not  forward  toward 
birth.  It  regards  the  present  as  a 
Finis  at  the  end  of  a  book;  it  does 
not  realize  that  the  present  is 
simply  the  notes  for  the  first 
chapter  of  a  book  that  is  about 
to  be  written. 

The  mistake  of  Oswald  Speng- 
ler  is  characteristic.  Spengler 
was  one  of  the  few  philosophers 
of  the  transition  which  he  pic- 
turesquely called  the  decline  of 
the  West.  His  observation  and 
even  insight — considered  as  poet- 
ic realization  of  what  he  saw — 
is    powerful:    his     description     of 


34 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■■flL. 


■ 

■     ■ 


:    I    u'rf 

1 1 


megalopolitan  man  and  the  dry 
sterility  of  his  sand-heap  culture 
explains  much,  from  Ezra  Pound 
to  the  New  York  Times.  But  he 
shared  the  confusions  which  the 
modern  mind  forever  draws  from 
its  premises;  he  was  not  imagina- 
tive or  vital  enough  to  under- 
stand the  difference  between  the 
stage  of  technology  and  any  pre- 
vious human  stage.  He  talked  of 
it  as  another  'winter,'  perhaps  so 
profound  as  to  be  the  last.  The 
true  analogy,  however,  was  that 
it  initiated  a  new  geologic  era. 
It  is  the  end  of  a  mesozoic  age — 
so  that  the  very  nature  of  spring, 
summer,  autumn,  and  winter  will 
be  forever  changed.  It  is  not 
merely  the  end  of  the  old,  but 
the  beginning  of  a  different  kind 
of  new. 

The  first  principle  of  the  new 
culture,  then,  is  this:  the  present 
is  not  an  end  but  an  origin. 

Thus  whoever  talks  of  death 
and  futility  and  the  end  does  not 
belong  to  the  new  culture — 
though  conceivably  he  might  pre- 
pare for  the  new  culture  by  the 
destruction  of  the  old.  (A  time 
comes,  however, — and  it  has  ar- 
rived,— when  destruction  of  the 
old  can  by  its  lethal  emphasis  be- 
come prevention  of  the  new. 
Long  ago  I  said  that  such  a  man 
as  Mencken  was  the  most  re- 
actionary force  in  America,  drug- 
ging    creative     effort     with     the 


opium  of  futility  .  .  .  that  reaction 
was  triumphant  behind  castor  oil 
in  Italy  and  behind  Prejudices  in 
America.)  Whoever  concentrates 
on  the  casualties  of  the  age  of 
poverty  and  builds  upon  their 
ruins  a  mood  of  negation  and  des- 
pair does  not  belong  to  the  new 
culture.  (Such  was  Masters'  ac- 
tivity as  ouija-board  for  the  un- 
fortunate dead  of  Spoon  River; 
such  A.  E.  Robinson's  celebration 
of  waifs,  and  castaways,  and 
drifting  nonentities  with  a  small 
satanic  kink.)  Whoever  sees  the 
worlds  go  'like  old  women  gather- 
ing fuel  in  vacant  lots',  and 
seeks  an  escape  from  futility  by 
a  cerebral  return  to  a  ghost-reli- 
gion, does  not  belong  to  the  new 
culture.  (Page  T.  S.  Eliot!)  Who- 
ever in  style  and  idea  accepts 
poverty  and  individual  riches  as 
essential  circumstances  and  moti- 
vations of  human  living,  and  sees 
humanity  in  terms  of  hunger  and 
greed  does  not  belong  to  the 
new  culture.  (This  is  the  central 
flaw  in  Theodore  Dreiser's  mod- 
elling of  Titans  out  of  putty.) 
Whoever  writes  human  behavi- 
our down  to  its  lowest  terms  of 
speech  and  character  and  mood, 
instead  of  expanding  it  toward 
its  exuberant  potentialities,  does 
not  belong  to  the  new  culture. 
(So  Hemingway  and  Faulkner 
pull  the  polar-bear-skin  of  tough- 
ness over  their  too  tender  hearts 


W!£fl9*lt 


JANUARY,  1945 


35 


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and  growl  horribly  to  prove  that 
they  are  hard-boiled.)  The  pre- 
sent scene  is  cluttered  by  these 
ambulant  ghosts:  we  seem  cul- 
turally to  be  down  among  the 
dead  men. 

Undoubtedly  in  the  decline  of 
the  geologic  era  that  spawned  the 
dinosaurs,  if  those  solemn  crea- 
tures of  the  slime  had  a  literature 
it  would  have  been  futilitarian. 
The  dinosaurs  would  have  gone 
around  like  Mencken,  declaring 
in  their  quaint  Victorian  fashion 
that  life  can  do  little  to  'change 
the  practical  joking  of  God';  or 
declaiming  like  Eliot  that  they 
were  the  hollow  dinosaurs,  the 
stuffed  dinosaurs;  or  proclaiming 
like  Jeffers  that  they  were  the 
Buddha  of  ice  and  night.  They 
would  have  returned  to  the  dino- 
saurian  equivalent  of  Anglo- 
Catholicism;  or  forgot  their  woes 
by  calling  everybody  not  on  the 
subscription  lists  of  the  Dino- 
saurian  Mercury  a  boob;  or  made 
sonorous  propaganda  for  the  Ice 
Age.  But  that  is  all  gone  now 
under  the  prehistoric  ooze — all 
their  Prejudices,  and  Waste 
Swamps,  and  Roan  Dinosaurs  .  .  . 
and  life  goes  marching  on  in  a 
new  dimension  and  a  new  mood. 
Einstein  and  Eddington,  Beet- 
hoven and  Shakespeare  and 
Blake,  reach  out  for  truths  below 
red  and  beyond  violet.  The  dino- 
saurs and  their  stupid  culture  of 


poverty  are  gone;  even  the  cul- 
ture of  man's  poverty  is  going:  a 
different  geologic  era  comes — the 
clock  strikes — human  history  be- 
gins. 

The  new  culture  turns  from  the 
end  toward  the  beginning:  it  is 
an  origin.  Thus  psychologically 
it  will  be  like  the  child  who  is 
the  third  stage  in  Nietzche's 
great  parable  of  the  spirit.  First 
came  the  conservative  load-bear- 
ing camel,  a  beast  of  burden  only; 
then  came  the  fierce  heretical 
lion,  breaking  decorums  and  ta- 
boos and  winning  lordship  in  its 
own  wilderness  of  the  Nay. 

But  last  comes — and  must  come 
if  we  are  to  have  the  new  culture 
— the  stage  of  the  child:  'Inno- 
cence is  the  child,  and  forgetful- 
ness,  a  new  beginning,  a  game,  a 
self-rolling  wheel,  a  first  move- 
ment, a  Holy  Yea.  Aye,  for  the 
game  of  creating,  my  brethren, 
there  is  needed  a  Holy  Yea  unto 
life:  its  own  will  willeth  now  the 
spirit.'  The  culture  of  abundance 
will  be,  indeed  alone  can  be,  the 
age  of  the  child.  It  will  be  'a  new 
beginning,  a  Holy  Yea.' 

The  new  era, — in  accordance 
with  the  earth's  mystical  recip- 
rocation of  material  and  spiritual, 
— will  both  create  and  be  created 
by  a  new  culture.  It  will  be  both 
dynamo  and  symbol.  Its  mood 
will  be  based  upon  man's  mast- 
ery   of   abundance;    it   will   itself 


36 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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integrate  and  crown  economic 
abundance  with  spiritual  exuber- 
ance. It  will  free  itself  from  the 
present  tensions,  in  order  that  it 
may  grow  into  a  new  intensity 
of  life.  It  will  cease  to  be  self- 
conscious,  and  will  become  life- 
conscious.  It  will  be  the  outward 
and  audible  expression  of  man's 
physical  mastery  of  the  world. 

It  will  turn  away  from  an  em- 
phasis on  death,  the  end;  it  will 
turn  toward  birth  and  the  begin- 
ning. It  will  cease  to  be  the  cul- 
ture of  night;  it  will  be  the  cul- 
ture of  the  sun. 

Three 

What  will  be  the  characteristic 
style  of  this  culture  of  abund- 
ance, this  culture  of  the  sun? 

Let  us  see  this  style  as  it  has 
already  begun,  quietly  and  un- 
noticed, in  the  arts  that  deal  with 
material  things:  in  transportation, 
architecture,  and  technology.  We 
must  look  at  these  first,  and  away 
from  art  and  philosophy,  in  ord- 
er that  eventually  we  may  look 
at  art  and  philosophy  more  wise- 
ly and  creatively.  Consider  the 
new  technology:  airplanes,  stream- 
lined trains,  automobiles;  really 
modern  factories  (those  with 
electric  machinery),  clean,  noise- 
less, full  of  the  power  and  the 
glory;  hydro-electricity  on  a  Con- 
tinental scale;  modern  city  plan- 
ning, functional     and     air-condi- 

JANUARY,  1945 


tioned  buildings;  the  latest  lib- 
raries and  schools  functional  with 
sun  and  air;  beautifully  organiz- 
ed large-scale  farms.  In  them, 
and  not  as  yet  in  literature,  will 
we  find  'innocence  .  .  .  and  for- 
getfulness  ...  a  game,  a  self- 
rolling  wheel,  a  first  movement, 
a  Holy  Yea.'  They  speak  of  an 
origin,  whereas  literature  still 
speaks  of  an  end.  And  what  are 
their  qualities  of  style? 

Organic  integrity  and  function- 
al strength;  the  beauty  of  dy- 
namic simplicity,  serving  life  in 
lines  of  power!  In  them,  nothing 
is  purposely  hidden,  nothing  is 
artificially  involved,  nothing  is 
tortured  on  the  one  hand  into  ro- 
cocco  decoration  or  on  the  other 
into  esoteric  obscurity:  every- 
thing is  direct,  dynamic,  lean  yet 
supple.  Looking  at  these  things 
one  has  a  strange  sense  not  of  a 
return  to  nature,  but  of  a  unity 
with  nature  raised  to  a  new  ten- 
sion. In  the  presence  of  a  stream- 
lined train  one  feels  the  same 
lift  of  the  spirit  that  the  great 
Blake  felt  when  he  looked  at  a 
tiger:  the  'fearful  symmetry'  is 
the  same;  both  are  a  portent  of 
nature  that  carries  us  beyond 
nature.  The  rippled  night  of 
Kipling's  black  panther,  Baghera, 
is  the  best  symbol  for  the  latest 
creations  of  technology.  ,  Man  has 
here  become  one  with  the  func- 
tional beauty   of    nature.     (Thus 


37 


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nature  balances  the  tree  in  pro- 
portion of  leaf  and  trunk  and 
root;  thus  nature  fashions  the 
bird  for  the  air  and  the  jaguar 
for  the  jungle.)  Emerson  spoke 
long  ago  of  things  in  America 
'That  will  be  sung  .  .  .  that  will 
sing  themselves.'  Here  they  are! 
A  beautiful  clear  hard  strength, 
an  integrity  of  ends  and  means, 
a  clear  value  so  vitally  implicit 
that  it  becomes  explicit  and  also 
an  image  and  symbol  of  deeper 
meanings:  such  is  the  style  of 
the  emerging  technology.  If  you 
look  at  an  old-time  locomotive — 
squat,  awkward,  absurd  with  its 
tall  mushroom-topped  smoke- 
stack and  its  air-bumping  lines 
and  ill-balanced  weight,  you 
hardly  know  what  value  or  mean- 
ing is  meant  to  be  incarnated 
there:  the  word  has  not  become 
substance.  But  if  you  look  at  a 
modern  locomotive  you  know  the 
meaning  at  once;  you  say,  with- 
out any  enigma  of  thought,  speed. 
The  value  is  so  implicit  as  to  be 
explicit:  the  locomotive  is  symbol 
and  image;  it  is  a  work  of  art. 
You  know  its  value  as  you  know 
the  meaning  of  tiger  or  butterfly, 
by  living  intuition  of  perfectly  in- 
carnated significance. 

(Compare  with  this  direct 
functional  beauty  and  value,  the 
supposed  'moderns'  of  the  cult  of 
incoherence.  Set  beside  an  air- 
cooled,       beautifully       functional 


building,  such  a  Eusapia  Palla- 
dino  of  literary  table  rapping  as 
Gertrude  Stein.  Modern  life 
moves  toward  simple  clarity,  to- 
ward dynamic  strength,  toward 
communication  of  value  and 
meaning;  she  says  good-bye  to  all 
that  and  makes  a  glory  of  con- 
fusion. Her  literary  ectoplasm 
is  a  reaction  from  all  that  is  vital 
in  the  new  age:  it  is  a  return  to 
ghosts.  Or  compare  the  later 
James  Joyce,  hiding  his  own  con- 
fusion under  the  fog  of  Esqui- 
maux and  God  knows  what — 
with  the  lean  hard  beauty  of  a 
great  dam  storing  up  life  and 
power  for  humanity.  What  have 
all  his  mouthfuls  of  fog  got  to  do 
with   the   age   of   abundance?) 

Style  is  the  man:  style  is  the 
culture.  Lucid  and  dynamic, 
functional  in  the  life  of  the  world 
in  order  that  power  mastered 
may  permit  economic  abundance 
and  spiritual  exuberance,  the 
new  culture  will  have  the  'fear- 
ful symmetry'  of  nature's  energy 
enhanced  by  the  intellect  of  man. 
It  will  have  the  style  of  the  tur- 
bine that  in  lucid  power  quietly 
pours  over  the  city's  night  its 
abundance  of  exuberant  stars. 

Four 

And  what  will  be  the  central 
mood  that  is  the  phsychological 
premise  of  this  style? 

The  mood  of  mastery!     It  will 


38 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


be  chastened  and  realistic,  yet  a 
mood  of  mastery.  There  will  be 
in  it  none  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury's foolish  bravado  of  opti- 
mism; none  of  Swinburne's  facile 
'Glory  to  Man  in  the  highest,  for 
Man  is  the  master  of  things.' 
There  will  be  no  trust  in  evolu- 
tion as  a  cosmic  escalator;  none 
of  yesterday's  glib  assurance  of 
progress.  The  technologist  knows 
better  than  Mr.  Mencken  the 
'practical  joking'  of  flood,  earth- 
quake, drought,  famine,  pestil- 
ence, cyclone,  and  sun;  he  knows 
better  than  Mr.  Mencken  the 
pathos  of  human  stupidity.  But 
also  the  technologist  does  not 
succumb  to  the  old  Greek  super- 
stition (natural  to  a  culture  based 
only  on  man-power)  of  'Fate'  and 
'stealthy  Nemesis.'  Man  can 
change  'the  practical  joking  of 
God'  ...  as  Mr.  Mencken  ought 
to  have  known  if  he  employed  a 
razor  to  shave  off  the  whiskers 
that  Quarterly  reviewers  used  to 
wear  .  .  .  Man  finds  the  world 
not  only  malleable,  but  strangely 
co-operative:  'Seek  and  ye  shall 
find,  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened 
unto  you,'  is  not  merely  good  re- 
ligion, it  is  good  technology.  It 
can  move  not  only  mountains;  it 
can  refashion  a  Continent. 

The  assurance  of  possible  mast- 
ery will  transform  the  central 
mood  of  literature.  All  modern 
iteration   of  the   fixed  futility   of 

JANUARY,  1945 


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man;  the  resolutely  opened 
mouth  and  the  resolutely  folded 
hands;  the  sense  that  life  is  a 
birthday  candle  lighting  Vanity 
Fair  .  .  .  will  seem  what  they  are 
— fashionable  nonsense.  Man  will 
not  expect  everything;  but  he 
will  certainly  not  (like  the  'mod- 
erns') expect  nothing.  He  will 
transcend  the  equal  illusions  of 
our  soft  hope  of  yesterday  and 
our  hard  despair  of  today,  in  the 
synthesis  of  candid  intellect  and 
creative  energy. 

This  hard  creative  faith  will 
end  the  soft  sentimental  illusions 
of  a  Mencken  describing  man  as 
'A  sick  fly  sitting  on  a  fly-wheel.' 
It  will  be  merely  bored  by  the 
iteration  of  impotent  modern 
men  that  modern  men  are  impot- 
ent. It  will  say:  'An  end  to  all 
these  Little  Boy  Blues  blowing 
their  saxophones  in  the  Waste 
Land!'  The  men  of  the  new  cul- 
ture, turning  earth  into  a  garden 
and  a  workshop,  will  not  have 
any  time  for  or  any  interest  in 
these  futilitarians.  Will  the 
pathological  vicarious  suicide  of 
an  expatriate  fugitive  to  the  par- 
lors of  London — 

'We  are  the  hollow  men, 
We  are  the  stuffed  men' 
mean  anything  to  the  technologist 
of  a  new  world?  The  driver  of 
a  streamlined  train,  splitting  the 
sunlight  at  ninety  miles  an  hour; 
the  builders  of  the  hydrology  of 


39 


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a  Continent;  the  organizers  of 
great  mass  farms  that  feed  vast 
populations  with  ease  as  from 
some  cosmos  of  ordered  beauty 
.  .  .  will  hardly  feel  'hollow'  or 
'stuffed'.  Hollow  men  and  stuffed 
men  will  go  to  historical  museums 
where  they  belong — curiosities 
like  bed-warmers  and  black  mit- 
tens. 

The  new  culture  of  Techno- 
cratic man  will  be  full  of  the 
mood  of  mastery.  It  will  say 
with  Blake: 

'If  the  sun  and  moon  should 
doubt 

They'd  immediately  go  out.' 


It  will  say  with  Whitman:  T  am 
large:  I  contain  multitudes.'  It 
will  say  with  Thoreau:  'There  is 
more  day  to  dawn.  The  sun  is 
but  a  morning  star.'  It  will  be 
haughty  to  the  sun,  and  refer  to 
the  earth  affectionately  as  'Old 
top-knot.' 

Man  will  be  humbly  proud,  vit- 
ally hard,  superbly  realistic,  cool- 
ly powerful;  and  his  culture  will 
speak  his  soul.  The  old  culture 
is  the  wail  of  the  impotent;  the 
new  culture  will  be  the  poetry  of 
the  potent. 


— E.  Merrill  Root 


(concluded   next   month) 


There's  A  War  On! 

~k  IN  THE  19  YEARS  prior  to  Pearl  Harbor,  the  United  States  Army  Air  Forces 
trained  less  than  7,000  pilots;  in  1943  more  than  207,000  received  instructions  in  col- 
leges and  flight  training  centers.  — Science  Digest 

*  CANADIAN  SHIPYARDS  have  constructed  between  3,000,000  and  3,500,000 
deadweight  tons  of  merchant  shipping  since  the  war  began,  of  which  2,500,000  tons 
remain  under  Canadian  ownership,  the  Canadian  Shipping  Board  said. 

In  figures  prepared  for  Trade  Minister  MacKinnon,  the  board  revealed  merchant 
ships,  built  since  the  war  and  actually  being  operated  by  Canada,  at  present  number 
137,  including  10,000-ton  freighters  and  3,600-ton  tankers,  deadweight. 

About  300  freighters  of  10,000  tons  have  been  built  in  Canadian  yards.  Two  were 
sold  to  the  United  Kingdom  and  90  to  the  United  States,  leaving  208.  Of  these  about 
100  were  made  available  for  war  transport  to  the  United  Kingdom  as  mutual  aid, 
leaving  some  110  for  operation  by  Canadian  companies,  although  serving  the  general 
cause  of  the  United  Nations  under  wartime  shipping  agreements. 

Orders  were  given  for  43  freighters  of  4,700  tons,  deadweight.  One  was  provided  for 
Australia  under  mutual  aid,  15  were  granted  Britain  under  mutual  aid  and  other  ar» 
rangements,  nine  are  in  service  under  shipping  board  jurisdiction  and  18  still  are  to 
be  delivered. 

Some  12  tankers  of  10,000  tons  and  six  of  3,600  tons  were  built.  All  these  vessels  are 
being  operated  by  Canada.  ■ — Canadian  Press 

-^-  WORLD  WAR  II  is  costing  us  $2,200  every  second  of  the  day,  seven  days  a  ureek. 
To  fire  a  14-inch  gun  costs  $900;  to  fire  a  16-inch  shell  costs  more  than  $1,500.  The 
Signal  Corps,  which  so  far  has  been  allotted  $5,500,000,000  during  this  war,  was  start- 
ed during  the  Civil  War  with  an  appropriation  of  $2,000.  A  battleship  requires  3,000 
electric  bulbs,  an  armored  division  60,000.  — Railroad  Telegrapher 


40 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


m 


Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun 


Our  last  great  frontier  cannot  be  conquered  by  the  methods  of  the 
Price  System,  but  can  yield  only  to  an  integrated  technological  ad- 
ministration of  the  entire  Continent.  Power  and  technology  will  re- 
lease the  great  north  to  the  people  of  North  America. 

(continued  from  last  month) 


IN  minerals,  the  Land  of  the 
Midnight  Sun  is  indeed  well 
supplied.  In  Alaska  are  to  be 
found  antimony,  bismuth,  arsenic, 
chromium,  iron,  manganese,  mer- 
cury, molybdenum,  nickel,  tung- 
sten, and  zinc — few  of  these  pro- 
duced to  any  extent  as  yet.  Com- 
mercially Alaska  is  producing 
copper,  lead,  tin,  and  platinum, 
besides  those  comparatively  use- 
less metals,  gold  and  silver.  Of 
the  non-metallic  minerals,  coal 
and  limestone  are  being  worked 
at  the  present  time.  The  estimates 
of  coal,  both  bituminous  and  lig- 
nite, run  into  billions  of  tons.  In 
addition  to  these  are  asbestos, 
barite,  gypsum,  jade,  marble, 
petroleum,  and  sulphur.  The 
petroleum  areas  are  included  in 
the  U.  S.  Naval  Reserve  near  the 
Endicott  Range. 

The  Yukon  is  rich  in  copper, 
silver-lead-galena,  coal,  and  of 
course,  gold.  The  Canada  Year 
Book  states  that  the  probable  re- 
serves of  coal    in    the    northern 


areas  are:  Yukon,  250,000,000 
tons  of  anthracite  and  bitumin- 
ous, 4,690,000,000  tons  of  lignite; 
Northwest  Territories,  4,800,000,- 
000  tons  of  lignite;  and  the  Arctic 
Islands,  6,000,000,000  tons  of  bitu- 
minous. The  quantity  given  offi- 
cially for  the  Arctic  Islands  is 
hardly  likely  to  be  more  than  a 
good  guess. 

The  District  of  Mackenzie  is 
now  well  known  for  its  radium- 
uranium  deposits  at  the  east  end 
of  Great  Bear  Lake.  Close  to 
Fort  Norman,  the  Imperial  Oil, 
a  subsidiary  of  Standard  Oil,  has 
drilled  a  well  which  supplies  the 
north  with  petroleum.*  Copper  is 
plentiful  along  the  Coppermine 
River  as  well  as  in  the  vicinity 
of  Great  Bear  Lake.  Gold  is  be- 
ing recovered  all  along  the  west- 
ern edge  of  the  Laurentian  Shield 
together  with  platinum  and 
showings  of  other  metals.  As 
yet,  the  search  is  largely  confined 
to  gold  and  silver,  but  as  the 
areas   widen    and    more   work   is 


Reprinted  from   Technocracy   A-13,   by 
kind  permission  of  CHQ. 

JANUARY,  1945 


*This    article     was     written     before    the 
Canol  project  was  commenced. 


41 


aFRS 

■aSf 


done,  the  metallic  content  of 
these  districts  will  be  better 
known.  Lead  and  zinc  are  now 
being  worked  just  south  of  Great 
Slave  Lake. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Laur- 
entian  Shield,  at  Chesterfield  In- 
let, a  nickel-copper  area  is  being 
developed.  In  this  vicinity  tin, 
manganese,  sulphur,  molybde- 
num, potassium  salts,  mica, 
marble,  limestone,  jade,  and  gyp- 
sum are  all  reported  in  quan- 
tities of  appreciable  dimensions. 
In  Ungava,  iron  ore  of  both  mag- 
netite and  hematite  are  stated  to 
have  been  located  in  large  depos- 
its, while  the  Belcher  Islands  off 
the  mouth  of  the  Great  Whale 
River  are  known  to  hold  similar 
ore.  Most  of  Ungava  is  as  yet 
poorly  prospected  and  may  con- 
tain mineral  deposits,  especially 
along  its  western  coast. 

The  minerals  of  the  north  will 
most  probably  be  found  along 
the  western  and  eastern  edges  of 
the  Laurentian  Shield  and  among 
the  islands  of  the  Arctic  Ocean. 
As  yet,  these  areas  have  hardly 
been  checked.  Potentialities  in 
regard  to  metal  alloys  are  not 
known.  Work  is  progressing 
slowly. 

The  new  methods  of  prospect- 
ing, however,  bear  no  relation  to 
the  old  traditions.  Yesterday's 
prospector  of  the  north  was  a 
pioneering  adventurer.    He  knew 


little  of  any  mineral  except  gold. 
He  used  the  primitive  methods 
of  travel  and  led  the  existence 
of  the  redman.  Today's  pros- 
pector cruises  over  a  given  area 
by  airplane,  and  by  observation 
chooses  the  likeliest  spots  for 
closer  examination.  He  is  not 
only  used  to  modern  technologi- 
cal methods  of  travel  but  is 
trained  in  his  work.  He  uses  the 
latest  geophysical  appliances  and 
knows  his  minerals  and  chemist- 
ry. He  can  take  proper  measure- 
ments and  does  not  make  wild 
guesses  based  on  the  color  and 
shape  of  the  ore  he  finds.  The 
diamond  drill  is  used  extensively 
and  records  are  charted.  The 
most  likely  areas  for  metallic 
ores  will  soon  be  decisively  out- 
lined and  intensive  search  will 
settle  once  and  for  all  the  most 
probable   content. 

Every  day  from  the  airports  of 
the  northern  prairies  and  from 
Ontario,  whether  it  be  summer 
or  winter,  the  giant  flying  cruis- 
ers go  winging  into  the  north. 
Mining  engineers,  trappers, 
Royal  Canadian  Mounted  Police, 
doctors,  fire  wardens,  the  ser- 
vants of  the  Governor  and  Com- 
pany of  Gentlemen  Adventurers 
into  Hudson's  Bay,  as  well  as  all 
those  whose  business  or  pleasure 
take  them  north  of  fifty-three, 
use  the  latest  device  of  techno- 
logy for  conquering  distance  and 


42 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


&Uk 


ttx  KB 


w 


» 


■ 


■  >"' 


1 1 1 1     BBIs5,3 
■        ■Hot 


^ 


setting  at  naught  the  perils  of 
snow,  ice,  and  frigid  tempera- 
tures. 

Every  night  the  air  is  filled 
with  messages  over  the  radio 
waves  to  the  lonely  posts  of  the 
Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun.  The 
conquest  of  the  sound  waves  has 
done  more  to  open  up  the  north 
than  any  other  act  of  man  except 
the  mastery  of  the  science  of 
flight. 

Henry  Hudson,  Franklin  and 
his  illfated  crews  of  the  Eurebus 
and  Terror,  Ross,  McClintock, 
Peary,  Mackenzie,  and  all  those 
who  braved  the  dread  Arctic 
nights  with  hand  tools  and  primi- 
tive supplies  would  gaze  with 
amazement  and  incredulity  at  the 
equipment  of  the  up-to-date  ex- 
plorer of  the  frozen  north. 
Science  has  done  more,  in  the 
short  time  it  has  invaded  the 
north,  with  little  loss  of  life  and 
less  toil,  than  was  accomplished 
by  all  the  deaths,  the  grim 
struggles,  and  the  stark  hardships 
of  the  old  pioneers. 

By  airline  the  distance  from 
Fort  McMurray  on  the  Athabas- 
ca to  Aberdeen,  Scotland,  is 
about  the  same  as  from  New 
York  to  Liverpool  (3,350  miles); 
but  the  distance  over  the  water 
via  the  Arctic  is  only  about  six 
hundred  miles.  From  Aklavik  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Mackenzie  to 
Petrograd    it    is     roughly    3,715 

JANUARY,  1945 


miles  or  very  little  farther  than 
from  Vancouver,  B.  C,  to  New 
York  by  train.  The  ideal  air 
route  to  Europe  lies  across  the 
northland — despite  the  recent 
failure  of  the  Russian  fliers. 

The  Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun 
is  almost  equivalent  in  area  to 
the  whole  United  States.  Its 
climate  for  the  most  part  is  no 
more  severe  than  that  of  the 
Middle  West.  Its  soil  is  potential- 
ly fertile;  its  waters  teem  with 
fish;  animal  life  abounds  on  its 
land  surface.  It  has  tremendous 
possibilities  in  the  way  of  ex- 
traneous energy,  and  its  great 
mineral  content  is  not  even 
known.  Yet  the  archaic  social 
habits  of  the  people  of  this  Con- 
tinent and  the  interference  of  the 
Price  System  render  this  land 
comparatively  useless. 

The  great  northland  has  been 
regarded  as  uninhabitable  only 
because  man  cannot  conquer  it 
with  the  primitive  methods  of  his 
forefathers.  It  defies  the  handi- 
craft laborer  and  the  ox-cart 
modes  of  travel.  It  is  the  land 
for  the  airplane,  the  caterpillar 
tractor,  coal,  electricity,  steel,  and 
advanced  technology.  Its  prob- 
lems are  highly  technical,  requir- 
ing the  knowledge  of  basic  con- 
ditions and  an  understanding  of 
material,  physical  facts  for  their 
solution.  Its  problems  will  never 
be   solved   by     confidence,    faith, 


43 


-..-,[ 


sfssF 


■El 


m 


M 

M 


■ 


■  ■■'',  \w» 

m 


hope,  charity,  or  votes.  They 
can  and  will  be  solved  by  the 
scientist  and  technician  dealing 
with  facts  and  applying  the 
methodology  of  precision  control. 
Since  man  discovered  the  use 
of  fire,  he  has  driven  back  many 
frontiers;  and  with  the  flood-tide 
of  technology  to  break  down  the 
barriers  of  tradition,  prejudice, 
and  habit,  he  soon  will  find  that 
he  can  build  a  domain  within  the 


confines  of  the  Poles  themselves. 
The  Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun 
awaits  the  Technate  of  the  New 
America.  When  it  comes,  the  so- 
called  Barren  Lands  will  fade  in- 
to myth  and  legend,  to  be  re- 
placed by  the  great  industrial 
north  that  will  take  its  part  in 
making  this  Continent  the  birth- 
place of  a  new  race. 

— G.  D.  Munster 


Revolution  in  the  Deep  South 

A  revolutionary  point  in  the  history  of  cotton  growing  in  the  south 
was  reached  at  Clarksdale,  Miss.,  when  harvest  was  begun  on  the 
first  commercial  acreage  of  cotton  produced  by  completely  mechanical 
methods.  Gone  were  the  mules  and  one-furrow  plows.  Gone  were 
the  cotton  choppers  and  their  hoes,  and  at  picking  time  there  wasn't 
a  bandana-headed  'mammy'  or  young  sister  in  the  field  with  picking 
sacks. 

A  28-acre  field  was  plowed,  planted,  cultivated,  and  harvested  en- 
tirely by  machines  on  the  Hopson  brothers'  5,000-acre  plantation  south 
of  Clarksville.  The  work  marked  a  turning  point  in  the  culture  of 
cotton  that  undoubtedly  will  cause  a  far  reaching  change  in  southern 
agricultural  economy,  cotton  experts  declared. 

The  cotton  land  was  plowed  and  prepared  this  spring  by  tractors 
and  farm  implements  common  to  the  corn  belt.  The  cotton  then  was 
planted  with  a  seeder  not  unlike  those  used  in  the  midwest. 

Weeds,  which  are  a  tremendous  problem  in  this  lush  and  delectable 
land,  were  destroyed  by  flame.  Miniature  flame  throwers  mounted  on 
machinery  moved  down  the  rows,  blasting  the  young  weed  growth, 
when  the  cotton  plants  were  between  6  and  8  inches  high. 

The  field  was  treated  this  way  approximately  six  times  during  the 
growing  season.  The  cotton  plants,  with  tough,  barklike  stems,  were 
not  injured  by  the  flame,  which  easily  destroyed  the  green  leaf  blades 
of  the  weeds.  The  result  of  the  fire  treatment  was  a  clean  field  that 
would  have  made  a  corn  farmer  envious.  —Vancouver  News  Herald 


44 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


1 1 


i 


Electricity  in  Your  Postwar  Home 


Harry  Slattery,  U.  S.  Federal  Rural  Electrification  Administrator,  out- 
lines possible  electrical  innovations  in  our  homes  after  the  war.  Just 
as  our  young  men  have  had  the  best  weapons  for  war,  they  will  de- 
mand the  best  equipment  for  peace. 


AMERICANS,  at  war  today, 
stand  on  the  threshold  of  a 
new  world  tomorrow.  It  is  a  curi- 
ous commentary  on  our  civiliza- 
tion that  wars  give  impetus  both 
to  scientific  advances  and  the  ap- 
plication of  new  discoveries  in  our 
manner  of  living.  This  war  has 
compelled  American  science  to 
don  seven-league  boots  so  that  it 
can  outstride  the  crafty  inven- 
tions of  our  enemies. 

The  life  and  health  of  this  na- 
tion are  going  to  be  improved 
even  faster  after  this  war  than 
the  conditions  of  farm  life  were 
changed  by  electricity  during  the 
seven  years  before  the  war  broke 
out.  Necessarily,  most  of  the  re- 
cent scientific  discoveries  have 
been  kept  a  secret,  but  some  of 
our  'secret  weapons'  are  coming 
to  light  through  dispatches  from 
Europe,  Africa  and  the  South 
Pacific.  To  engineers  and  men 
of  science,  each  new  weapon  re- 
veals its  story  of  laboratory  re- 
search pushing  back  our  frontiers 
— especially  in  the  field  of  elec- 
tricity. 


Reprinted    from    Hygeia    by    kind    per- 
mission   of    the    publisher. 

JANUARY,  1945 


We  do  not  yet  know  how  far 
science  has  gone.  We  do  know 
enough,  however,  to  be  able  to 
say  it  will  probably  make  little 
difference  whether  you  live  in  the 
city,  on  the  farm  or  in  the  sub- 
urbs: Electricity  will  have  new 
wonders  in  store  for  you. 

In  Washington,  not  long  ago, 
this  situation  was  forcefully  call- 
ed to  my  attention.  I  was  enter- 
tained in  the  home  of  a  charming 
lady  who  had  been  fortunate  en- 
ough to  obtain  the  best  and  new- 
est equipment  late  in  1941. 

'Her  home  is  wonderful,  in- 
deed,' I  told  my  companion,  a 
well  known  engineer,  on  leaving. 
'Air  conditioning,  the  electric 
range,  the  automatic  washer  and 
the  electric  refrigerator  with 
storage  space  for  frozen  foods — 
they're   all   wonderful.' 

'Yes,'  he  said,  'but  as  soon  as 
the  war's  over,  they  will  all  be 
out  of  date.  Every  one  will  want 
something  better.' 

I  was  also  in  Washington  many 
years  ago  when  the  Armistice  of 
1918  was  signed,  and  I  can  tell 
you  that  the  young  men  who 
came  back  from  France  had  their 
eyes  turned  to  the  future.     They 


45 


sought  better  homes,  mass  pro- 
duction of  automobiles,  good 
lighting  and  plumbing,  thousands 
of  ingenious  mechanical  devices. 

When  peace  comes  after  this 
war,  millions  of  our  finest  young 
men  and  women  are  going  to 
come  home  with  their  heads  full 
of  ideas  about  what  science  can 
do.  The  Army  and  Navy  have 
trained  many  of  them  in  techni- 
cal fields.  They  know  that  we 
can  now  take  pictures  in  the 
dark  with  infrared  rays.  They 
know  that  electronic  tubes  (the 
same  type  of  tubes  used  in  your 
radio)  have  been  improved  to 
control  hundreds  of  difficult 
tasks,  such  as  guiding  pilotless 
planes. 

They  will  want  the  wonders  of 
the  electric  eye  and  radar  trans- 
lated into  improving  their  own 
working  and  living  conditions. 
These  young  men  and  women 
will  know  about  and  want  farm 
and  home  freezers,  home  flour 
mills,  cold  cathode  lighting,  tele- 
vision and  new  developments  in 
air  conditioning.  They  will  not 
take  no  for  an  answer.  Just  as 
they  had  the  best  weapons  with 
which  to  wage  war,  they  will 
want  for  themselves  and  their 
families  the  best  equipment  for 
a  life  of  peace.  The  best  our  fac- 
tories can  turn  out  is  none  too 
good  for  them;  as  soon  as  con- 
version  to   peacetime   production 


has  been  completed,  the  factories 
will  be  in  a  position  to  turn  out 
hundreds  of  new  and  improved 
electrical  appliances  for  postwar 
homes. 

Throughout  the  war,  frozen 
foods  and  frozen  food  storage 
have  assumed  increasing  import- 
ance, and  many  people  who  rais- 
ed Victory  Gardens  now  see  new 
possibilities  for  producing  and 
preserving  their  own  food.  Rural 
Electrification  Administration  en- 
gineers have  prepared  functional 
specifications  for  a  lift-top  home 
freezer  and  storage  chest  which 
is  being  tested  at  the  govern- 
ment's Beltsville  Research  Cent- 
er in  Maryland. 

This  freezer,  while  designed 
especially  for  farm  use,  would 
also  be  suitable  for  suburban  and, 
perhaps,  city  homes.  The  box  is 
20  cubic  feet  in  size,  and  about 
one  third  of  the  capacity  is  de- 
signed for  quick-freezing.  When 
the  storage  compartment  is  full, 
however,  the  freezing  section  can 
also  be  filled  with  food.  The 
freezer  will  hold  as  much  as  1,000 
pounds  of  meat  or  500  pounds  of 
fruits  and  vegetables.  It  is  oper- 
ated by  a  one-half  horsepower 
motor  and  is  expected  to  use 
an  average  of  125  kilowatt  hours 
per  month.  At  2  cents  a  kilowatt 
hour,  the  monthly  cost  would  be 
$2.50. 

Even  before  the  war,  a  house- 


46 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


wwmam 


A 


hold  refrigerator  with  frozen  food 
storage  space  was  on  the  market. 
Now  many  manufacturers  have 
a  wide  variety  of  designs  for 
postwar  home  freezers  to  meet 
almost  any  needs.  Proposed 
freezers  range  from  a  4  cubic 
foot  box  selling  as  low  as  $175  to 
walk-in  freezers  occupying  a 
whole  room  in  the  house  or  base- 
ment. 

It  is  difficult  to  grasp  the  full 
postwar  significance  of  frozen 
foods  as  long  as  we  talk  merely 
in  terms  of  the  home.  Commer- 
cial preparation  of  foods  will,  of 
course,  keep  step.  There  have 
been  some  experiments  with 
freezing  pre-cooked  foods,  and 
one  caterer  is  reported  to  have 
offered  complete  'frozen  meals.' 

It  is  conceivable  that  stratos- 
phere planes  may  be  used  after 
the  war  to  carry  foodstuffs  from 
one  section  of  the  country  to  an- 
other. Fruits  and  vegetables, 
packed  in  containers  and  stored 
in  the  plane,  would  automatically 
be  quick-frozen  within  a  few 
minutes  after  the  plane  entered 
the  stratosphere.  Then  insulated 
doors  would  be  shut,  sealing  in 
the  cold,  and  the  cargo  would  be 
delivered  to  the  market  just  as 
our  frozen  foods  are  today,  but 
the  mechanical  step  of  quick- 
freezing  would  be  eliminated. 

My  friend  and  co-worker,  M. 
M.   Samuels,   author     of     Power 


Unleashed,  says  that  in  the  past 
we  have  controlled  temperature 
mostly  in  one  direction — upward. 
When  it  was  cold,  we  built  fires, 
or  used  other  means  of  heating 
— such  as  electricity.  But  when 
it  got  hot,  the  best  remedies  most 
of  us  could  devise  were  fans, 
easy  chairs  and  mint  juleps. 

The  engineers  think  that  in  the 
future  we  are  going  to  do  some- 
thing about  hot  weather,  too.  One 
proposal  is  for  a  portable  air 
conditioner  which  can  be  moved 
on  wheels  from  room  to  room. 
This  would  be  a  plug-in  device. 
The  housewife  might  use  it  in 
the  kitchen  during  the  day,  in  the 
living  room  during  the  evening 
and  in  the  bedroom  at  night. 
Such  room  coolers  will  probably 
be  available  after  the  war  at  a 
reasonable  price,  and  estimates  of 
sales  range  from  100,000  to  a  mil- 
lion a  year. 

Of  course,  if  you  build  a  new 
house  after  the  war,  the  architect 
will  undoubtedly  include  an  air 
conditioning  system  as  complete 
and  efficient  as  your  present 
heating  plant.  Recently  devised 
electronic  devices  may  contribute 
to  the  effectiveness  of  the  new 
air  conditioning  systems,  and  the 
cost  of  this  equipment  is  likely 
to  come  within  the  reach  of  more 
and  more  home  owners. 

Electricity,  too,  will  -  provide 
better    lighting    for    our    postwar 


JANUARY,  1945 


47 


homes.  While  wartime  experi- 
ments may  not  actually  bring 
about  revolutionary  changes  in 
our  lighting  plans,  fluorescent 
lighting  and  cold  cathode  lighting 
have  already  progressed  far  en- 
ough to  make  us  realize  that  our 
present  idea  of  what  constitutes 
good  lighting  will  soon  change 
radically.  Fluorescent  fixtures, 
are,  even  now,  highly  desirable 
for  kitchen,  bathroom  and  laun- 
dry. With  further  refinement  of 
our  lighting  methods,  the  house 
of  tomorrow  may,  very  conceiv- 
ably, have  nonglare,  cold  light 
streaming  from  its  walls  and  ceil- 
ing. We  may  go  even  further 
and  permit  our  lighting  fixtures 
to  diffuse  through  the  room 
health-giving  or  bacteria-killing 
rays  invisible  to  the  human  eye. 

All  such  developments  will  af- 
fect the  appearance  and  plans 
for  our  postwar  dream  homes. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  general 
pattern  of  postwar  housing  may 
also  greatly  influence  the  future 
development  of  electrical  home 
equipment. 

We  have  recently  begun  to  use 
many  new  kinds  of  building  ma- 
terials —  particularly  plastics. 
Homes  have  been  prefabricated 
as  a  wartime  device  for  accom- 
modating people  rushed  to  war 
plant  areas. 

When  I  visited  the  Tennessee 
Valley  Authority  recently,  I  saw 


many  prefabricated  houses.  They 
were  first  put  up  for  workmen  at 
the  site  of  a  new  dam.  The  con- 
struction work  there  took  about 
two  years,  after  which  the  houses 
were  moved  to  the  present  loca- 
tion. 

'Just  look  at  those  houses,'  said 
members  of  the  party.  'You 
wouldn't  believe  it,  but  they  are 
more  than  three  years  old.  The 
larger  ones  have  five  rooms  with 
bath,  and  after  the  war  similar 
homes  can  be  built  to  retail  for 
$2,000  or  $3,000.' 

The  houses  were  not  all  alike, 
either.  They  were  so  designed 
that  they  could  be  put  together 
in  various  patterns,  giving  the 
impression  of  a  modern  village 
street. 

If  prefabrication  should  solve 
the  housing  problem  for  middle 
and  low  income  families  after  the 
war,  it  would  be  possible  for 
manufacturers  to  cast  a  whole 
kitchen  at  once — just  as  automo- 
bile bodies  are  made.  There,  in 
one  piece,  you  would  have  the 
electric  range,  refrigerator,  sink 
— perhaps  even  an  automatic 
washer  and  ironer.  Much  of  this 
equipment  might  be  run  by  a 
single  motor  and  certainly  the 
whole  kitchen  could  be  installed 
in  a  few  hours. 

These  are  really  only  samples 
of  what  the  postwar  home  may 
be  like.     There  will  be  improved 


48 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


£8 


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irons,  completely  automatic 
washers,  better  ways  of  cooking 
electrically,  new  types  of  electric 
cleaners  and  probably  new  gad- 
gets by  the  hundreds.  One  in- 
ventor has  patented  a  meat  cook- 
er which  operates  at  1,200  de- 
grees and  cooks  steaks  in  thirty 
to  sixty  seconds.  He  claims  that 
meat  cooked  in  this  fashion  re- 
tains all  the  juices  and  is  tender 
because  of  separation  of  the  fib- 
ers. 

In  engineering  circles,  it  has 
been  known  for  some  time  that 
the  technical  development  of  tele- 
vision radio  sets  had  reached  a 
point  where  commercial  produc- 
tion was  practical.  Costs  were 
high,  however,  and  existing  pro- 
grams didn't  encourage  mass 
buying,  even  in  the  New  York 
areas  in  which  they  were  intro- 
duced. Now  one  of  the  largest 
electrical  firms  is  taking  orders 
for  postwar  delivery  of  television 
broadcasting  sets  and  expects  to 
make  television  receivers  avail- 
able. Already  several  large  cities 
throughout  the  country  are  mak- 
ing plans  for  television  broad- 
casting, and  there  is  a  projected 
network  between  New  York  City 
and  Schenectady.  Technically,  it 
will  be  possible  for  us  to  enjoy 
fine  grain,  full  color  pictures  on 
an  18  inch  screen  after  the  war. 

Frequency  modulation  radios 
— with  clearer  tone  and  freedom 

JANUARY,  1945 


from  static — are  also  definitely 
coming  for  broad  postwar  dis- 
tribution. It  is  believed  that  F-M 
radio  sets  and  television  sets  can 
be  sold  after  the  war  at  reason- 
able prices. 

Functional  specifications  have 
been  prepared  by  the  Rural 
Electrification  Administration  for 
a  small  electric  mill  to  grind 
fresh  flour  and  cereal  from  whole 
grain  on  the  kitchen  table.  One 
manufacturer  has  designed  such 
a  mill  about  the  size  of  a  food 
mixer  and  weighing  25  pounds. 
It  will  grind  from  20  to  40 
pounds  of  flour  an  hour  and  is 
operated  by  a  half  horsepower 
electric  motor. 

Another  'future'  is  for  an  elec- 
trical dust  catcher  that  would 
automatically  draw  all  dust  in  a 
room  to  concealed  wires,  which 
might  follow  the  baseboard. 
Many  other  new  electrical  de- 
velopments are  in  store  for  the 
future,  and  we  can  be  certain 
that  electric  power  will  play  a 
bigger  part  in  our  lives  than  it 
has  ever  played  before. 

The  war  emergency  has 
brought  several  high-producing 
electric  generating  plants  into 
operation,  and  when  peace 
comes,  huge  quantities  of  power 
needed  for  making  aluminum, 
manufacturing  airplanes  and 
building  ships  may  be  released 
for  other  purposes.     There   may 


49 


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be  an  actual  surplus  of  power  for 
a  time  after  the  war,  but  only 
temporarily.  After  all,  if  there 
is  an  abundance  of  power,  we 
will  all  use  more  of  it.  We  will 
think  in  terms  of  plenty  instead 
of  scarcity.  After  the  war,  the 
great  public  power  dams  from 
TVA  and  Grand  River  to  Grand 
Coulee  and  Bonneville  may  be 
turned  to  providing  cheap  power 
for  general  use  and  for  manufac- 
turing more  of  the  equipment  we 
are  going  to  want  for  our  farms 
and  homes. 


The  market  for  this  power 
should  be  unlimited.  Already 
more  than  40  per  cent  of  the 
nation's  farms  are  electrified,  and 
we  foresee  electrification  of  an- 
other 5,000,000  rural  dwelling 
units  within  a  few  years  after  the 
war's  end.  Even  the  remotest 
farm  wife  may  soon  be  able  to 
enjoy  the  benefits  of  air  condi- 
tioning and  fluorescent  lighting, 
while  her  husband  does  his 
chores  electrically — just  as  so 
much  industrial  work  is  done  in 
the  cities.  — Harry  Slattery 


Technology  Marches  On! 


•jc  AN  ELECTRICAL  DEVICE  recently  developed  requires  precision  tubing  of  the 
following  fantastic  specifications:  outside  diameter,  19/ 10,000th  inch;  wall  thickness, 
75 /100,000th  inch;  inside  diameter,  4/ 10,000th  inch.  This  tubing  is  narrower  than  a 
mosquito's  stinger,  yet  it  is  perfect  dimensionally.  A  pound  of  the  pure  nickel  which 
goes  into  this  hairlike  tubing  is  stretched  out  18  miles  in  the  finished  job.  The  spider 
can  spin  a  thinner  filament,  but  it  isn't  tubing.  — Electronic  Markets 

*  THE  COTTON  TEXTILE  INDUSTRY  is  now  spinning  more  cotton  on  30  per- 
cent fewer  spindles  than  it  did  15  years  ago.  This  has  led  to  United  States  consumption 
of  11  million  bales  of  cotton  in  each  of  the  last  two  crop  years  compared  with  a  peace- 
time average  of  about  6V2  million  bales. 

— R.  J.  Cheatham,  U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture 

*  THE  UPPER  PRISM  HOLDER  of  a  tank  periscope,  once  machined  from  alumi- 
num casting,  is  now  made  of  plastic,  releasing  80,000  pounds  of  aluminum  alloy, 
800,000  man-hours,  and  183  machine  tools  for  a  total  annual  saving  of  $755,000  on 
this  one  item. 

*  A  PEACH  DE-FUZZING  MACHINE  has  now  been  produced  to  take  the  fuzz  off 
peaches.  The  gadget  scrubs  the  fuzz  from  15  tons  of  peaches  per  hour  at  a  cost  of  one 
mill  per  box.  Its  innards  are  simplicity  itself,  engineers  explain.  Just  an  area  five  by 
six  feet  full  of  conveyor  belts  and  little  horsehair  brushes  topped  by  an  exhaust  fan 
to  suck  away  the  down.  It's  operated  by  a  one  horsepower  electric  motor. 

— The  Journal  of  Wall  Street 

■jf  WHAT  IS  CLAIMED  to  be  the  finest  filament  produced  by  man  or  nature  is  a 
synthetic  textile  filament  so  fine  that  it  is  only  one-eighth  the  weight  of  the  finest 
silk  filament.  Twenty  thousand  miles  of  this  filament  weighs  one  pound. 

— Product  Encineebinc 


50 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


TECHNOCRACY 


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WHAT? 

Technocracy  is  science  in  the  social 
field.  Encyclopedia  Americana  says: 
'Whatever  the  future  of  Technocracy, 
one  must  fairly  say  that  it  is  the 
only  program  of  social  and  economic 
reconstruction  which  is  in  complete 
intellectual  and  technical  accord  with 
the  age  in  which  we  live.' 

WHEN? 

Technocracy  originated  in  the  winter 
of  1918-1919  when  Howard  Scott 
formed  a  group  of  scientists,  engin- 
eers, and  economists  that  became 
known  in  1920  as  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance— a  research  organization.  Some 
of  the  better  known  names  in  the 
Technical  Alliance  are  of  interest, 
such  as:  Frederick  L.  Ackerman,  ar- 
chitect; L.  K.  Comstock,  electrical 
engineer;  Stuart  Chase,  C.P.A.  (now 
well-known  writer);  Bassett  Jones, 
electrical  engineer;  Leland  Olds, 
statistician  (now  Federal  Power 
Commissioner);  Benton  Mackaye 
(now  in  the  Forestry  Department); 
Charles  P.  Steinmetz  and  Thorstein 
Veblen  (both  now  dead).  Howard 
Scott  was  Chief  Engineer.  In  1930 
the  group  was  first  known  as  Tech- 
nocracy. In  1933  it  was  incorporated 
under  the  laws  of  the  state  of  New 
York  as  a  non-profit,  non-political, 
non-sectarian  membership  organiza- 
tion. In  1934  Howard  Scott,  Direct- 
or-in-Chief,  made  his  first  Continent- 
al lecture  tour  which  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  present  Continental 
membership  organization.  Since  1934 
Technocracy  has  grown  steadily  with- 
out any  spectacular  spurts,  revivals, 
collapses,  or  rebirths.  This  is  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  press  has 
generally  'held  the  lid'  on  Technoc- 
racy, until  early  in  1942  when  it 
made  the  tremendous  'discovery'  that 
Technocracy  had  been  reborn  sudden- 
ly, full-fledged  with  all  its  members, 
headquarters,  etc.,  in   full   swing! 


WHY? 

Technocracy's  survey  of  the  econo- 
mic situation  in  North  America  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  de- 
velopment a  process  of  progressive 
social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instability 
reaches  the  limits  of  social  tolerance 
and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be 
installed  on  this  Continent  a  social 
mechanism  competent  to  meet  the 
needs  of  its  people.  Technocracy 
finds  further  that  the  day  when 
social  operations  on  this  Continent 
can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now 
necessary  that  there  be  applied  in 
the  social  field  the  quantitative 
methods  of  physical  science.  Tech- 
nocracy, therefore,  proposes  that  the 
North  American  Continent  be  operat- 
ed as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This 
control  would  operate  the  area  under 
a  balanced-load  system  of  production 
and  distribution,  whereunder  there 
would  be  distributed  purchasing 
power  commensurate  with  the  re- 
sources and  the  continuous  full-load 
operation  of  the  physical  equipment, 
with  the  guarantee  of  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living,  equality  of  income,  and 
economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of 
working  hours,  to  every  adult  in- 
habitant. 

HOW? 

At  this  stage  the  objectives  of  Tech- 
nocracy are  first,  the  education  of 
the  people  of  North  America  to  a 
realization  of  the  conditions  behind 
the  social  crisis,  and  second,  the  or- 
ganization of  all  those  willing  to  in- 
vestigate and  interest  themselves  in- 
to an  informed,  disciplined,  and  func- 
tionally capable  body  whose  know- 
ledge and  ability  can  be  called  upon 
to  prevent  chaos  in  North  America 
at  that  time,  now  imminent,  when 
the  Price  System  can  no  longer  be 
made  to  operate.     . 


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All  lor  One  and  One  for  All! 


OTTAWA.  Dec.  5 — Mail  boxes  of  Members  of  Parliament  these  days  are  jammed 
with  letters,  all  the  same  but  signed  by  different  persons  and  most  of  them 
mailed  in  British  Columbia.  They  call  on  Members  to  adopt  Technocracy's 
program  of  'all  for  one  and  one  for  all,'  ask  for  'national  military  conscription'  as 
the  first  step  toward  'total  conscription  of  men,  machines,  materiel,  and  money  with 
national  service  from  all  and  profits  to  none.'  The  letters  are  reaching  individual 
Members  at  the  rate  of  50  to  100  a  day  and  one  Member  last  night  estimated  a  total 
of  50,000  had  reached  the  Parliament  buildings.  They  all  come  free  as  letters 
addressed  to  Members  at  Ottawa  are  eligible  for  free  carriage.  — Canadian  Press 


THE  DAILY  PRESS  has  reported  that  Members  of  Parliament  are  annoyed 
with  the  deluge  of  letters  urging  the  adoption  of  Total  Conscription  of  Men, 
Machines,  Materiel,  and  Money  with  National  Service  from  All  and  Profit*  to 
None.  No  doubt  the  soldiers  who  are  being  killed  and  wounded  overseas  because 
of  a  shortage  of  reinforcements  and  ammunition  have  felt  even  greater  annoyance  that 
Parliament  hasn't  backed  them  up  with  everything  we've  got  by  installing  Total 
Conscription. 


(Section  Stamp) 


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PUBLISHED  IN  CANADA  BY  SEC.  1  -  R.  D.  12349 

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TECHNOCRACY 

DICE5T 

THE    ONLY    MAGAZINE    IN    CANADA    THAT    IS    PREPARING   THE   PEOPLE   OF   THIS 
COUNTRY    FOR   SOCIAL   CHANGE 


FEBRUARY,  1945 


VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 


No.  80 


—STAFF- 


DONALD   Bruce   Editor 

W.  D.  Ellwyn  Assistant  Editor 

Dorothy  Fearman  Assistant  Editor 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Assistant  Editor 


M.  C.  McKay  Business  Manager 

G.  H.  Connor  Circulation  Manager 

V.   A.   Knudsen    Research 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Production 


A  Concept  for  a  Continent  3 

The  CCF  Concoction  -  Part  1  13 

News  'Values'  21 

Agriculture  -  Ancient  and  Modern  25 

The  Culture  of  Abundance  38 

The  Concept  of  Legalities 43 

The  Story  of  Alberta  Coal  -  Part  1  47 


Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349,  Techno- 
cracy Inc.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies  25  cents.  Twelve  issues  for  $2.50; 
six  issues  for  $1.25.  Bundle  rates  10  to  100,  20  cents  per  copy;  100  copies  or 
more,  19  cents  each.  Continental  Headquarters  of  Technocracy  Inc.  is  at  155 
E.  44th  St.,  New  York  17,  N.  Y.  Send  all  correspondence  and  manuscripts  and 
make  all  money  orders  payable  to  Technocracy  Digest,  625  West  Pender  St., 
Vancouver,  B.  C  Entered  as  second  class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  Department, 
Ottawa.     Printed  in  Canada. 


FRONT  COVER 

A  much  enlarged  and  greatly  improved  Westinghouse  a-c  calculating  board  makes  it 
possible  to  solve  complicated  power-system  problems  more  quickly  than  on  previous 
calculators.  The  board  can  simulate  up  to  18  power  sources,  and  can  be  electrically 
divided  in  any  desired  manner  for  the  simultaneous  solution  of  two  small  problems, 
or  it  can  be  operated  as  a  single  unit  for  a  large-system  study.  Instrument  scales  read 
directly  in  power-system  quantities  instead  of  requiring  the  use  of  multipliers,  which 
simplifies  the  work.  (Westinghouse  Wartime  Engineering  Photo) 


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For  centuries  men  have  dreamed  of  overcoming  the  rapids  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  and  making  Toronto,  Cleveland,  Detroit,  Chicago,  Duluth, 
and  Fort  William  ocean  ports.  Technocracy  contends  that  this  vision 
can  be  fabricated  in  our  time. 


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HERE  in  United  States  our 
national  political  adminis- 
tration has  promised  the  country 
that  it  would  provide  full  employ- 
ment for  60  million  Americans. 

Sixty  million  Americans  were 
promised  jobs  in  the  Chicago 
speech  of  President-elect  Roose- 
velt at  higher  wages,  at  the  same 
time  that  business  was  assured 
that  it  would  receive  increased 
profits.  Both  of  these  promises 
were  made  simultaneously  with 
the  statement  that  prices  would 
be  lowered  and  taxes  lessened. 
Vice  President  Wallace  in  Madi- 
son Square  Garden  promised  58 
million  jobs  prior  to  the  Presi- 
dent's Chicago  address  with  a 
national  income  of  170  billion  dol- 
lars a  year.  President  Roosevelt, 
as  leader  of  the  Democratic 
Party  and  President  of  United 
States  for  another  four-year  term, 
will  bear  the  chief  responsibility 
of  introducing  an  internal  eco- 
nomic policy  that  will  be  capable 
of  providing  60  million  Americans 
with  full  employment.  Technoc- 
racy asks  the  question,  'Employ- 
ed at  what?' 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


Would  60  million  on  a  greater 
WPA  be  full  employment?  We 
doubt  whether  the  American 
public  would  accept  such  non- 
sense on  so  great  a  scale.  The 
question  naturally  comes  to  al- 
most every  American's  mind, 
'How  can  employment  be  created 
under  this  Price  System  great 
enough  in  numbers  and  continu- 
ous throughout  the  year  to  pro- 
vide a  sufficient  annual  income  to 
enable  the  average  American  to 
have  a  large  enough  purchasing 
power  to  consume  the  output  of 
American  technological  produc- 
tion?' 

Any  observer  on  the  national 
scene  knows  that  it  is  not  within 
the  wildest  dreams  of  imagina- 
tion for  private  enterprise  to  pro- 
vide such  total  volume  of  nation- 
al employment.  Private  enter- 
prise can  be  kept  alive  only  by 
the  indirect  subsidy  of  deficit 
government  spending  plus  direct 
government  subsidy  of  govern- 
ment agencies.  Even  with  all  of 
the  government  subsidizing,  pri- 
vate enterprise  could  not  initiate 


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projects  on  grand  enough  scale  to 
absorb  the  surplus  employables. 
Only  the  Governments  in  Can- 
ada and  United  States  can  initi- 
ate and  carry  through  public 
works  projects  great  enough  in 
size  and  scope  to  be  considered 
Continental  investments. 

Every  attempt  will  be  made  by 
private  enterprise,  local  interest 
groups,  states'  rights,  counties, 
townships,  and  pressure  blocs  to 
prevent  any  public  works  project 
proposed  from  becoming  a  physi- 
cal investment  in  the  North 
American  Continent.  Both  the 
Governments  of  Canada  and  Uni- 
ted States  will  undertake  public 
works  individually  within  their 
respective  countries  and  others 
that  involve  the  joint  participa- 
tion of  both  countries.  President 
Roosevelt  stated  that  he  proposes 
to  extend  the  principle  of  the 
TVA  to  other  rivers  such  as  the 
Missouri,  the  Arkansas,  the  Red, 
and  the  Tombigbee.  The  St. 
Lawrence  Seaway  will  also  be  up 
for  consideration  by  the  next 
Congress  of  the  United  States. 
Two  bills  have  been  introduced 
into  this  Congress  for  the  cre- 
ation of  a  Missouri  Valley  Auth- 
ority. 

These  are  but  signs  of  the  post- 
war time.  Every  trained  tech- 
nologist and  engineer  knows  that 
United  States  and  Canada  after 
the  war  will  have  a  tremendous 


surplus  of  unemployed  manpower 
under  this  Price  System.  There- 
fore, our  respective  Governments 
are  going  to  turn  loose  a  whole 
series  of  river  authorities  and 
other  gigantic  public  works  pro- 
jects into  which  the  surplus  man- 
power may  be  drained  from  the 
national  picture.  The  question 
arises  here,  are  any  of  the  pro- 
jects great  enough  in  size  and 
scope,  are  the  projects  sufficient 
in  number,  and  will  the  sum  total 
result  of  the  completed  projects 
produce  permanent  Continental 
investment? 

The  Tennessee  Valley  Authori- 
ty has  been  publicized  as  the 
great  instrumentality  which 
brought  salvation  to  the  citizens 
of  the  Tennessee  watershed. 
Technocracy  has  nothing  but  ap- 
peciation  for  the  engineering  exe- 
cution of  the  various  structural 
components  in  the  TVA  construc- 
tion program.  Unfortunately,  the 
vision  of  the  technologist  and  en- 
gineer was  cramped  by  all  the 
political  and  economic  limitations 
of  this  Price  System.  The  en- 
gineering design  for  the  use  of 
waters  of  the  Tennessee  water- 
shed was  forced  into  narrow 
political  and  business  channeliza- 
tion. You  would  think  that  the 
Tennessee  River  existed  all  by  its 
isolated  self,  that  it  originated  in 
Heaven  and  finally  discharged  its 
water  the  other  side  of  Hell. 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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The  Tennessee  runs  into  the 
Ohio  River;  the  Ohio  River  runs 
into  the  Mississippi;  the  Mississ- 
ippi runs  into  the  Gulf.  South 
of  the  Tennessee  watershed  the 
Tombigbee  runs  into  Mobile  Bay 
but  yet  the  concept  of  the  Ten- 
nessee Valley  design  never  en- 
visaged a  future  other  than  that 
of  flood  control,  power  genera- 
tion, and  a  small  degree  of  water 
transportation.  As  an  example, 
the  entire  flow  of  the  Tennessee 
River,  except  that  amount  to 
maintain  water  transportation  to 
the  Ohio,  could  be  turned  south- 
southwest  and  dumped  into  the 
Tombigbee  River,  emptying  into 
Mobile  Bay.  This  would  divert 
almost  the  entire  flow  of  the  Ten- 
nessee from  jamming  up  the  low- 
er Ohio  River.  It  would  provide 
a  new  channel  due  north  from 
Mobile  Bay  to  the  Tennessee  to 
the  Ohio.  An  additional  unit  to 
complete  this  project  would  be  a 
canal  from  the  Mississippi  due 
east  from  near  Memphis,  Ten- 
nessee, to  connect  up  with  the 
Tennessee-Tombigbee  water  sys- 
tem. 

The  Tennessee  Valley,  the  Mis- 
souri Valley,  the  Mississippi,  and 
the  Ohio  have  the  water  and  the 
watershed,  but  have  we  the  vision 
and  the  imagination  to  project  a 
technological  concept  of  design 
worthy   of  the  Continent? 

The  St.  Lawrence  River  is  the 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


highway  to  the  sea  of  the  great- 
est lake  water  system  on  earth. 
The  Great  Lakes  water  system 
of  North  America  is  a  natural 
water  highway  possessed  by  no 
other  continent.  The  Great 
Lakes  water  system  reaches  back 
from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  the 
Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  to  the  heart 
of  the  Continent.  From  these 
great  inland  fresh  water  seas  in 
the  heart  of  the  Continent,  mod- 
ern engineering  could  construct 
water  highways  to  the  Mississip- 
pi, the  Ohio,  the  Hudson,  Lake 
Winnipeg  and  points  west,  and  to 
the  Hudson  Bay  by  man-made 
Lake  Albany. 

Men  have  dreamed  for  centur- 
ies that  the  day  would  come 
when  means  would  be  found  to 
overcome  the  rapids  of  the  St. 
Lawrence,  and  the  Great  Lakes 
would  open  to  the  sea,  making 
Toronto,  Cleveland,  Detroit,  Chi- 
cago, Duluth,  and  Fort  William 
ocean  ports,  ocean  ports  for  the 
ships  that  sail  the  seven  seas. 
That  has  been  the  vision  of  men 
of  yesterday  and  today.  Technoc- 
racy contends  that  this  vision 
can  be  fabricated  in  our  time. 

The.  specifications  for  the  St. 
Lawrence  division  of  Technoc- 
racy's Continental  hydrology  call 
for  a  St.  Lawrence  seaway  from 
the  St.  Lawrence  River  to  Lake 
Ontario,  and  for  all  rivers  and 
locks  on  the  Great  Lakes  to  have 


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a  clearance  depth  over  sills  of  11 
meters,  and  a  minimum  channel 
width  of  200  meters;  for  twin 
double  hydraulic  lift  locks  to  be 
installed  on  the  St.  Lawrence  to 
raise  all  necessary  shipping  to  the 
level  of  Lake  Ontario;  for  similar 
twin  double  hydraulic  lift  locks 
to  be  installed  between  Lake 
Erie  and  Lake  Ontario.  Water 
locks  of  the  type  now  in  use, 
such  as  the  eight  locks  in  the 
Welland  Canal,  are  obsolete  be- 
cause of  their  inability  in  time 
to  handle  a  volume  of  traffic.  In 
place  of  the  present  New  York 
State  Barge  Canal,  there  would 
be  a  seaway  from  Lake  Erie  to 
Albany,  New  York,  with  11 
meters  depth,  200  meters  chan- 
nel width,  and  37  meters  lock 
width.  A  seaway  of  similar  speci- 
fications would  connect  the  Hud- 
son at  Albany  with  Lake  George, 
thence  to  Lake  Champlain,  and 
from  Lake  Champlain  to  the  St. 
Lawrence  via  the  Richelieu,  emp- 
tying into  the  St.  Lawrence  at 
Sorel. 

This  proposed  seaway  plan  of 
inter- connecting  the  St.  Lawrence 
River,  the  Great  Lakes,  and  the 
Hudson  River  would  provide  the 
maximum  flexibility  in  water 
transportation.  It  would  make 
every  city  on  these  routes  an 
ocean  port.  In  the  case  of  war,  it 
would  provide  not  only  a  water 
artery  of  war  supply  but  also  a 


valuable  inland     naval     highway 
for  the  fleet. 

The  St.  Lawrence  waterway 
now  proposed  for  joint  action  be- 
tween Canada  and  United  States, 
and  which  will  be  submitted  be- 
fore the  next  Congress  of  United 
States,  is  such  a  political  abor- 
tion that  it  ought  to  be  condemn- 
ed by  every  citizen  of  this  Con- 
tinent. The  proposed  St.  Law- 
rence waterway  is  purposely  de- 
signed on  such  a  small  scale  that 
modern  shipping  of  the  high  seas 
could  not  ascend  to  the  Great 
Lakes,  and  the  modern  shipping 
now  on  the  Great  Lakes  could 
not  descend  through  this  water- 
way to  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the 
Atlantic.  The  proposed  St.  Law- 
rence waterway  is  probably  a 
two-dam  project  designed  chief- 
ly for  the  production  of  hydro- 
electric power  and  not  to  create  a 
seaway  to  the  heart  of  the  Con- 
tinent. 

The  St.  Lawrence  River  sea- 
way of  Technocracy  will  natural- 
ly be  violently  opposed  by  the 
railroads,  eastern  banking  houses, 
eastern  export  and  shipping 
firms,  and  by  those  interests  that 
wish  to  restrict  the  creation  of 
new  port  facilities  1500  miles  far- 
ther west  than  the  existing  great 
city  ports  which  at  present  mon- 
opolize the  import-export  traffic. 
The  State  of  New  York  and  the 
Province  of  Quebec  would  flame 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


into  violent  opposition.  Montreal 
would  no  longer  be  the  great  sea- 
port of  eastern  Canada.  Montreal 
would  still  remain  a  port,  but 
most  of  the  ships  would  pass 
Montreal  inward  bound  to  cities 
destined  to  be  greater  ports.  So 
too  New  York  would,  see  a  steady 
stream  of  marine  shipping  passing 
up  the  Hudson  on  its  way  to  in- 
land ports  of  true  traffic  origin- 
ation. 

Seventeen  miles  north  of  St. 
Louis,  the  Missouri  empties  into 
the  Mississippi.  Two  thousand 
four  hundred  ninety  miles  north- 
west of  there,  where  the  Jeffer- 
son, the  Madison  and  the  Gallatin 
unite  at  Three  Forks,  Montana, 
the  Missouri  begins  its  long  travel 
to  the  Mississippi  and  the  sea. 

At  Canoe  Flats,  British  Colum- 
bia, just  across  the  swamp  from 
the  tail  end  of  the  Kootenay,  a 
river  flows  northward  to  where 
it  almost  meets  the  Fraser  and 
then  turns  south-southwest  final- 
ly passing  under  the  Canadian 
Pacific  railway  bridge  at  Revel- 
stoke  to  widen  out  and  in  its 
widening  form  the  Arrow  Lakes, 
1402  ft.  above  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
It  flows  on  south  past  Trail,  Brit- 
ish Columbia,  to  cascade  down 
over  Grand  Coulee  Dam  or  to 
roar  through  its  turbines  on  down 
past  Wenatchee,  Pascoe,  and  The 
Dalles,  to  be  retarded  for  the  last 
time  in   its   flight  at   Bonneville, 


72  ft.  above  its  goal,  then  rushing 
on  past  Portland  the  Columbia 
River  rolls  into  the  Pacific. 

The  Columbia  River  like  the 
Missouri  has  many  tributaries. 
Below  Trail,  British  Columbia, 
near  the  49th  parallel,  the  Co- 
lumbia is  joined  by  the  Pend 
Oreille  River  that  comes  from 
Lake  Pend  Orielle  in  Idaho. 
Emptying  into  Lake  Pend  Oreille 
is  that  long  feeder  river,  the 
Clark  Fork,  that  reaches  far  back 
into  Montana  close  to  the  Divide 
near  Helena  and  upper  Missouri 
River.  North  and  south  United 
States  has  many  rivers,  but  east 
and  west  to  cross  the  Continental 
Divide  to  the  Pacific,  the  Colum- 
bia and  the  Missouri  will  form 
the  great  transcontinental  water- 
way of  tomorrow. 

It  will  be  treason  to  the  gener- 
ations to  come  to  treat  the  Co- 
lumbia and  the  Missouri  Rivers 
as  political  'valley  authorities'  to 
enrich  every  local  chiseler  along 
their  banks.  The  moment  that  the 
Missouri  Valley  Authority  and 
the  Columbia  Valley  Authority 
are  authorized,  each  state,  county, 
town,  city,  and  community  along 
these  rivers  will  create  local  pres- 
sure blocs  to  scream  for  their 
pound  of  flesh  in  order  to  en- 
hance the  income  of  local  busi- 
ness. They  will  all  fly  the  black 
flag  of  piracy. 

Remember  the  long  drawn  out 


FEBRUARY,  1945 


fight  of  the  seven  states  over  the 
Colorado  River  which  forced 
Boulder  Dam  to  be  located  in  the 
Black  Canyon  of  the  Colorado  so 
that  the  state  boundary  line  ot 
Arizona  and  Nevada  divided 
Boulder  Dam  dead  center.  Fifty 
percent  of  the  power  generators 
at  Boulder  are  in  the  State  of 
Nevada  and  fifty  percent  are  in 
the  State  of  Arizona.  States' 
rights  did  its  best  and  succeeded 
in  politically  making  a  mess  of  a 
technological  structure!  Never 
forget  that  Boulder  Dam  on  the 
Colorado  was  sired  by  the  Es- 
crow Indians  of  Southern  Cali- 
fornia and  damned  by  the  poli- 
ticians in  Washington  and  seven 
other  states. 

The  present  proposals  for  the 
development  of  the  Columbia 
River  watershed  treat  with  the 
Columbia  River  and  its  tributar- 
ies in  the  States  of  Washington, 
Oregon,  Idaho,  and  Montana,  but 
leave  the  Columbia  River  and  its 
tributaries  in  British  Columbia  to 
be  dealt  with  by  cold  negation. 
The  Missouri  Valley  Authority 
will  have  to  deal  with  nine  states 
in  its  attempted  design  to  control 
the  Missouri  from  Three  Forks 
to  the  Mississippi.  Irrigation  of 
land  areas  along  both  rivers  will 
be  the  great-  grab-bag  for  local 
business  men  to  get  in  on  the 
ground  floor.  From  the  local 
standpoint,      the      generation     of 


power  from  the  rivers  will  be 
secondary  and  an  accessory  to 
municipal  development  and  to 
the  providing  of  cheap  Govern- 
ment-generated power  to  make 
greater  profits  in  private  indus- 
try. Each  community  on  the  Co- 
lumbia and  Missouri  Rivers  is 
licking  its  chops  over  the  pros- 
pects of  profitable  endeavors  that 
can  be  created  with  the  aid  of 
irrigated  land  and  cheap  power. 

It  must  be  remembered  that 
the  entire  cost  of  any  Columbia 
River  Authority  and  Missouri 
Valley  Authority  will  be  borne 
by  the  Federal  Government  of 
United  States,  and  the  money  to 
pay  for  such  valley  development 
will  come  from  the  Federal  Trea- 
sury in  Washington  to  be  paid 
out  of  the  national  income,  which 
national  income  is  acquired  by 
the  Government  through  taxation 
of  its  citizenry.  The  nation  will 
pay  the  cost  of  construction  of  a 
Missouri  and  Columbia  Valley 
Authority,  but  the  design  of  these 
river  authorities  will  not  be  de- 
termined on  a  national  basis;  it 
will  be  determined  by  the  politi- 
cal Government  of  United  States, 
chiefly  to  benefit  business  enter- 
prise along  these  river  banks. 

The  Missouri  Valley  Authority 
proposes  that  the  present  six  foot 
channel  in  the  Missouri  from  the 
Mississippi  be  deepened  to  nine 
feet  as  far  as  Sioux  City,  Iowa. 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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rihis  is  the  United  States  Army 
proposal.  The  Bureau  of  Reclam- 
ation, on  the  other  hand,  doesn't 
seem  to  be  interested  in  increas- 
ing the  navigation  facilities  of  the 
river  beyond  its  present  limita- 
tions. In  the  old  pioneer  river 
days,  river  boats  in  high  water 
drove  themselves  up  the  Missouri 
with  their  stern  wheelers  as  far 
as  Fort  Benton,  Montana.  Shades 
of  hell  and  high  water,  what's  the 
matter  with  us!  Can't  modern  en- 
gineering do  better  than  the 
coonskin-capped  pioneers. 

Russia  has  had  her  Five  Year 
Plans  but  five  year  plans  are  not 
great  enough  for  this  Continent. 
Let  America  plan  on  a  minimum 
of  twenty-five  years. 

The  Missouri-Columbia  divis- 
ion of  Technocracy's  Continental 
Hydrology  calls  for  a  Continental 
waterway  from  the  Mississippi  to 
the  Pacific  via  the  Missouri  and 
Columbia  Rivers.  It  specifies  a 
110  meter  width  of  channel,  6.75 
meters  depth;  twin  hydraulic  lift 
locks,  200  meters  in  length,  6  75 
meters  clearance  over  sills,  and 
37  meters  wide;  subsidiary  tribu- 
tary navigation  to  be  3.375  depth 
and  extended  to  feasible  limits. 

These  are  huge  projects  but,  if 
United  States  and  Canada  in  the 
period  following  this  war  are  to 
have  full  employment  at  higher 
annual  wages,  then  United  States 
and  Canada  must  be  prepared  to 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


produce  and  distribute  an  abund- 
ance to  all  its  citizens  every- 
where on  this  Continental  area. 
To  produce  abundance  necessi- 
tates a  greater  production  of  en- 
ergy and  a  greater  facility  of 
transmission.  This  Continent  has 
abundant  sources  of  water  power. 
Water  power  has  the  advantage 
that  in  its  use  we  are  not  con- 
suming non-replaceable  resources 
of  fossil  fuels.  The  only  way  the 
hydro-electric  power  resources 
of  this  Continental  area  can  be 
adequately  developed  and  brought 
to  social  usefulness  is  through  a 
Continental  transmission  system 
of  one  million  volts  d.c.  Under 
such  a  transmission  system,  hy- 
dro-electric power  resources  far 
from  points  of  consumption  could 
be  developed  and  their  electrical 
energy  piped  3,000  miles  in  any 
direction  to  the  point  of  social 
consumption  with  a  line  loss  of 
only  ten  percent.  In  order  to 
produce  abundance  in  Canada 
and  United  States,  it  will  require 
a  greater  installation  of  more  en- 
ergy-consuming devices  supplied 
by  lower  cost,  more  available 
electrical  energy. 

Once  abundance  has  been  pro- 
duced, Canada  and  United  States 
will  need  a  cheaper  system  of 
transportation  for  the  bulk  freight 
than  now  exists.  The-  energy 
cost  of  air  transportation  is  a- 
round  20  cents  a  ton  mile.  While 


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this  cost  may  fall  slightly  due  to 
improvements  in  the  near  future, 
it  will  always  be  so  high  as  to 
prohibit  bulk  freight  transport 
by  air  over  the  great  distances  of 
this  Continent.  Carload  lots  on 
through  freight  of  our  best  Am- 
erican railroads  is  one  cent  a  ton 
mile.  Prewar  ocean  freight  rates 
were  down  to  1/10  of  a  cent  per 
ton  mile.  A  completely  develop- 
ed Continental  Hydrology  in  Ca- 
nada and  United  States  would 
move  the  bulk  freight  of  this 
Continent  on  the  marine  trains 
of  its  inland  waterways  at  less 
than  1/11  of  one  cent  per  ton 
mile. 

Unfortunately,  the  concepts 
that  dominate  the  design  and  con- 
struction of  waterways  on  this 
Continent  are  a  hangover  from 
the  canal  pyschosis  of  Europe  and 
Asia.  Technocracy  wishes  to 
make  it  quite  clear  that  the  fun- 
damentals of  design  of  waterways 
comprising  the  Continental  Hy- 
drology is  a  total  departure  from 
the  limitations  of  European  and 
Asiatic  canal  systems,  which  were 
originally  constructed  and  devel- 
oped prior  to  the  advent  of  ener- 
gy prime  movers,  and  which 
were  in  reality  ditches  of  narrow 
width  and  shallow  depth  excavat- 
ed by  human  toil  and  hand  tools. 
Canal  barges  were  raised  either 
by  inclined  planes  or  water  locks. 
The  barges  themselves  were  haul- 


ed for  hundreds  of  years  by  hu- 
man beings  and  other  draft  ani- 
mals. 

The  waterways  of  a  Continen- 
tal Hydrology  would  be  con- 
structed by  power  machinery  of 
the  most  advanced  design.  Water 
levels  and  dam  heights  would  no 
longer  have  to  conform  to  the 
limitations  of  water  locks.  Dams 
could  be  built  high  enough  to 
create  in  actuality  a  succession  of 
lakes  and  control  water  channels, 
that  would  be  not  a  canal  system 
but  a  system  of  connected  water- 
ways on  which  would  move  not 
the  canal  barges  of  Europe  and 
Asia  carrying  from  50  to  1,000 
tons,  but  large  power-driven  sin- 
gle units  of  from  10,000  to  25,000 
tons,  and  marine  trains  carrying 
250,000  tons  and  averaging  over 
long  distances  better  than  ten 
miles  an  hour  when  in  motion. 
This  would  facilitate  a  more  ef- 
ficient development  of  hydro- 
electric power  through  greater 
main  line  water  storage  and  high- 
er head  generation. 

A  marine  train  consists  of 
twelve  trailer  units,  each  200 
meters  long  by  18  meters  wide 
and  with  a  draft  of  6.25  meters, 
electric  motor  driven  propellers 
and  steering  gear  in  each  trailer 
unit.  The  marine  train  is  hauled 
in  six  tandem  units.  The  power 
would  be  supplied  by  a  marine 
tractor,     self-propelled       floating 


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powerhouse  that  could  either 
pull  the  marine  train,  push  from 
astern,  or  be  located  anywhere 
between  units.  A  marine  train 
could  thus  successfully  transport 
250,000  tons  on  the  waterways  of 
our  Continental  Hydrology  with 
a  total  crew  of  20  or  fewer  men. 

The  Technate  of  North  America 
is  the  Technological  Potential 
Area  No.  1  of  the  world.  No  con- 
cept of  design  can  be  too  great 
for  this  Continent.  If  United 
States  and  Canada  can  in  five 
years  of  war  create  the  stupen- 
dous war  debt  of  over  $300  billion 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  consuming 
our  fabricated  resources  on  the 
fields  of  battle  to  defeat  our  mili- 
tary enemies,  then  our  respective 
countries  can  with  equal  facility 
appropriate  amounts  of  similar 
magnitude  to  design  and  con- 
struct on  this  Continent  of  North 
America  a  civilization  that  will  be 
proclaimed  by  the  generations  of 
Americans  to  come  as  the  glory 
of  the  ages. 

The  following  are  some  of  the 
Seaways  and  Waterways  includ- 
ed in  Technocracy's  Continental 
Hydrology.  The  list  of  Primary 
Waterways  is  incomplete  and  we 
have  not  listed  any  Secondary 
Waterways: 

Interoceanic  Seaway.  Channel 
length:  Approx.  135  miles;  chan- 
nel depth:  15  meters;  channel 
width:  200  meters.  Locks:  None — 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


sea  level. 

Tehuantepec  Canal  from  Puer- 
to Mexico  and  Atlantic  Ocean  to 
Pacific  Ocean.  For  Continental 
shipping  only — international  ship- 
ping must  be  via  Panama  Canal. 

Seaways.  Channel  width:  200 
meters;  channel  depth:  11  meters. 
Locks:  Twin  hydraulic  lift;  leng- 
th: 275  meters;  width:  37  meters. 
From  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  Dallas, 
Texas   (sea  level). 

From  Puget  Sound  to  Colum- 
bia River  (sea  level). 

From  St.  Lawrence  River  to 
Lake  Erie. 

From  Hudson  River  to  Lake 
Erie. 

From  Hudson  River  via  Lake 
Champlain  to  St.  Lawrence 
River. 

From  Bay  of  Fundy  via  Chig- 
necto  Bay  to  Northumberland 
Straight  and  the  Gulf  of  St.  Law- 
rence (sea  level). 

From  Lake  Huron  via  Geor- 
gian Bay  and  Lake  Simcoe  to 
Lake  Ontario. 

Waterways — Primary.  Channel 
width:  110  meters;  channel  depth: 
6.75  meters.  Locks:  Twin  hydrau- 
lic lift;  length:  200  meters;  width: 
37  meters. 

Atlantic  Inside  Waterway  at 
sea  level,  placed  just  inside 
coastline  from  Tehuantepec  Can- 
al up  the  Mexican  and  United 
States  Coasts  around  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  crossing     upper     Florida 


11 


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142; 


through  concrete  lined  canal,  and 
proceeding  northward  up  the  At- 
lantic Coast,  replacing  the  pre- 
sent inadequate  inside  waterway, 
and  terminating  at  or  near  Port- 
land, Maine. 

From  Mississippi  River  via  Illi- 
nois River  to  Lake  Michigan. 

From  Mississippi  River  to  Lake 
Superior  at  Duluth. 

From       Mississippi 
Cairo  along  the    Ohio 
beyond  Pittsburgh. 

From  Lake  Erie  to 
River  at  Pittsburgh. 

Missouri-Columbia 
tinental  Waterway  from  the  Mis- 
sissippi to  the  Pacific. 

From  Hudson  Bay  south  via 
Lake  Albany  and  Long  Lake  to 
Lake  Superior. 


River 
River 


at 
to 


the     Ohio 


Transcon- 


From  Lake  Winnipeg  to  Lake 
Superior. 

From  Lake  Winnipeg  via  Qu' 
Appelle  valley,  Saskatchewan 
River,  North  Saskatchewan  Riv- 
er, Athabasca  River  and  thence 
via  the  Fraser  River  and/or  the 
Skeena  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  at 
Prince  Rupert  and  at  New  West- 
minster. 

Athabasca  River  via  Lake 
Athabasca,  Great  Slave  Lake, 
and  the  Mackenzie  River  to  the 
Arctic  Ocean. 

From  the  Pacific  below  Juneau 
via  the  Taku  trough  and  Yukon 
River  to  Bering  Sea. 

(More  ground  will  be  covered 
with  greater  detail  in  other  issues 
to  come.) 

— CHQ,  Technocracy  Inc. 


*  A  CARBON-ARC  SEARCHLIGHT  operating  on  less  than  55  volts  has  generally 
been  classed  with  the  impossibles.  At  lower  voltages  the  arc  becomes  unstable.  It 
tends  to  go  out. 

However,  the  military  authorities  required  an  intense  light  beam  possible  only  with 
an  arc,  and  the  power  for  it  must  come  from  a  24-volt  storage  battery.  By  the  develop- 
ment of  a  radically  different  type  of  carbon  electrode — requiring  special  treatment — 
and  a  new  type  of  control,  the  engineers  produced  a  searchlight  that  is  stable  on  as 
little  as  18  volts. 

The  candle  power  of  the  beam  is  more  than  50  million,  which  is  25  times  greater 
than  the  beam  from  a  standard  airway  beacon.  This  new  searchlight  is  extremely  ef- 
ficient in  converting  electric  power  into  light.  It  develops  over  42,700  candle  power 
per  watt,  which  is  higher  than  any  previously  known  searchlight  of  similar  size. 

This  economy  of  electric  power  is  important  as  it  reduces  both  the  size  and  the 
weight  of  the  storage  battery  that  is  required.  — Westinchouse  Engineer 

■^  THE  ENERGY  AVAILABLE  from  America's  current  output  of  petroleum  is  e- 
quivalent  to  the  work  of  four  and  one-half  billion  men  laboring  eight  hours  a  day, 
six  days  a  week — or  two-and-one-half  times  the  population  of  the  earth  working  an 
ordinary  shift.  — Science  Digest 


12 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


Warn 


The  m  Concoction 


Tfoe  CCF  program  was  arrived  at  through  philosophic  discussion  and 
political  debate,  whereas  Technocracy's  social  synthesis  is  a  scientific 
survey  of  the  technological  trends  and  economic  processes  taking 
place  in  North  America. 


1  BELIEVE  that  the  CCF  pro- 
gram contains  every  advantage 
that  Technocracy  envisages.'  'I 
suggest  that  you  study  our  pro- 
gram and  find  out  wherein  the 
best  parts  of  the  program  of 
Technocracy  can  be  democratic- 
ally instituted  in  this  country.' 
'I  see  no  reason  for  thinking  that 
the  CCF  program  does  not  con- 
tain all  that  is  best  in  the  pro- 
gram of  Technocracy  and  I  sin- 
cerely trust  that  you  may  be  able 
to  lend  your  support  to  Canada's 
Farmer  Labour  Party  which  is 
now  a  going  concern  in  all  parts 
of  Canada.'  These  are  typical 
replies  from  CCF  Members  of 
Parliament  to  letters  drawing 
their  attention  to  Technocracy's 
proposals  for  war  and  peace. 

When  one  considers  how  far 
the  Co-operative  Commonwealth 
Federation  has  come  since  its 
first  national  convention  at 
Regina  in  July  1933,  the  above 
appeals  may  appear  to  have  their 
attractions.  The  CCF  is  the 
party  in  power  in  Saskatchewan 
and  the  official  opposition  in 
British    Columbia    and    Ontario. 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


At  the  eighth  CCF  national  con- 
vention (held  in  Montreal,  end 
of  November,  1944)  Secretary 
David  Lewis  reported  that  the 
membership  was  near  the  hund- 
red thousand  mark,  almost  three 
times  the  number  of  two  years 
ago.  According  to  the  latest  Gal- 
lup poll,  if  an  election  were  held 
now,  36%  of  the  people  would 
vote  for  Liberals,  28%  for  Tories, 
23%  for  CCFers,  13%  for  other 
candidates. 

But  before  we  succumb  to  the 
CCF  blandishments  and  fold  our 
Technocratic  tent  and  exchange 
it  for  a  CCF  polling  booth,  let 
us  examine  both  the  Co-operative 
Commonwealth  Federation  and 
Technocracy  closely  to  see  if  the 
two  programs  really  do  have 
much  in  common.  It  would  be 
nasty  to  have  such  a  pretty  love 
affair  end  with  'the  kiss  of 
death!' 

An  inspection  of  official  CCF 
literature  and  the  jjublished 
statements  of  its  leading  spokes- 
man establishes  the  following 
fundamental  differences: 


13 


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JfMM 


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1.  Technocracy  is  science  in  the 
social  field  and  the  CCF  program 
is  philosophy. 

The  CCF  program  was  arrived 
at  through  philosophic  discussion 
and  political  debate  whereas 
Technocracy's  social  synthesis 
is  a  scientific  survey  of  the  tech- 
nological trends  and  economic 
processes  taking  place  in  North 
America.  The  Technate  is  not 
'the  ideal  state';  instead,  it  is  the 
determination  of  the  next  most 
probable  social  operation  on  this 
Continental  Area. 

The  moralistically  subjective 
approach  of  the  CCF  to  social 
phenomena  is  clearly  revealed  in 
the  Regina  Manifesto  (July, 
1933),  which  is  considered  'the 
basic  statement  of  CCF  philoso- 
phy': 

'We  aim  to  replace  the  present 
capitalist  system,  with  its  inher- 
ent injustice  and  inhumanity,  by 
a  social  order  from  which  the 
domination  and  exploitation  of 
one  class  by  another  will  be 
eliminated,  in  which  economic 
planning  will  supersede  unregu- 
lated private  enterprise  and 
competition,  and  in  which  genu- 
ine democratic  self-government, 
based  upon  economic  equality 
will  be  possible.  The  present 
order  is  marked  by  glaring  in- 
equalities of  wealth  and  oppor- 
tunity, by  chaotic  waste  and  in- 
stability; and  in  an  age  of  plenty 


14 


it  condemns  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  to  poverty  and  insecurity. 
Power  has  become  more  and 
more  concentrated  into  the  hands 
of  a  small  irresponsible  minority 
of  financiers  and  industrialists, 
and  to  their  predatory  interests 
the  majority  are  habitually  sacri- 
ficed. When  private  profit  is  the 
main  stimulus  to  economic  effort, 
our  society  oscillates  between 
periods  of  feverish  prosperity  in 
which  the  main  benefits  go  to 
speculators  and  profiteers,  and  of 
catastrophic  depression,  in  which 
the  common  man's  normal  state 
of  insecurity  and  hardship  is  ac- 
centuated. We  believe  that  these 
evils  can  be  removed  only  in  a 
planned  and  socialized  economy 
in  which  our  natural  resources 
and  the  principal  means  of  pro- 
duction and  distribution  are 
owned,  controlled,  and  operated 
by  the  people.' 

With  this  sentimental  state- 
ment compare  Technocracy's 
scientifically  objective  appraisal 
of  the  same  phenomena: 

'Technocracy's  survey  of  the  e- 
conomic  situation  in  North  A- 
merica  leads  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  is  in  development  a 
process  of  progressive  social  in- 
stability, that  this  process  will 
continue  until  the  instability 
reaches  the  limits  of  social  intol- 
erance and  that  there  then  will 
have  to  be  installed  on  this  Con- 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


sM    I 


Uffi 


_^M 


tinent  a  social  mechanism  com- 
petent to  meet  the  needs  of  its 
people.  Technocracy  finds  furth- 
er that  the  day  when  social  oper- 
ations on  this  Continent  can  be 
based  on  a  method  of  valuation 
has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now 
necessary  that  there  be  applied 
in  the  social  field  the  quantitative 
methods  of  physical  science. 
Technocracy  therefore  proposes 
that  the  North  American  Contin- 
ent be  operated  as  a  self-contain- 
ed functional  unit  under  techno- 
logical control.  This  control 
would  operate  the  area  under  a 
balanced  load  system  of  produc- 
tion and  distribution,  whereunder 
there  would  be  distributed  suffic- 
ient purchasing  power  commen- 
surate with  the  resources  and  the 
continuous  full-load  operation  of 
the  physical  equipment,  with  the 
guarantee  of  a  high  standard  of 
living,  equality  of  income,  and 
economic  security,  at  a  minimum 
of  working  hours,  to  every  adult 
inhabitant.' 

2.  The  CCF  has  failed  to  under- 
stand or  recognize  Technocracy's 
major  economic  finding — that  the 
Price  System  in  its  entirety  (not 
just  the  'profit'  or  'capitalist'  sys- 
tem) has  been  doomed  by  the  im- 
pact of  technology. 

Technology  destroys  prices 
when  it  makes  goods  abundant 
and  it  decreases  purchasing  pow- 
er when  it  displaces  human  labor. 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


This  double-barrelled  effect  ren- 
ders a  monetary  medium  of  ex- 
change obsolete  and  makes  it  im- 
perative to  install  a  medium  of 
distribution  based  upon  a  physi- 
cal unit  of  measurement  which 
will  not  fluctuate.  Physical  cost 
will  have  to  replace  monetary 
cost.  Otherwise,  production  can- 
not be  geared  to  consumption. 
This  is  what  Technocracy  means 
when  it  says:  Technology  smashes 
the  Price  System.  Obviously,  the 
Price  System  structure  cannot  be 
saved  by  patchwork  when  the 
whole  foundation  is  collapsing 
and  the  mere  change  to  public 
ownership  of  resources  and  finan- 
ces will  be  of  no  avail. 

That  the  CCF  intends  to  try  to 
carry  on  with  the  Price  System 
under  its  program  is  plainly  in- 
dicated by  all  the  published  state- 
ments of  the  party  from  1933  to 
the  present  time.  The  Regina 
Manifesto  (1933),  in  dealing  with 
the  'socialization  of  all  financial 
machinery  ...  to  make  possible 
the  effective  control  of  currency, 
credit,  and  prices,'  outlines  the 
steps  that  the  CCF  would  take: 

'Planning  by  itself  will  be  of 
little  use  if  the  public  authority 
has  not  the  power  to  carry  its 
plans  into  effect.  Such  power 
requires  the  control  of  finance 
and  of  all  those  vital  industries 
and  services,  which,  if  they  re- 
main in   private  hands,    can    be 


15 


used  to  thwart  or  corrupt  the 
will  of  the  public  authority.  Con- 
trol of  finance  is  the  first  step  in 
the  control  of  the  whole  economy. 
The  chartered  banks  must  be 
socialized  and  removed  from  the 
control  of  private  profit-seeking 
interests;  and  the  national  bank- 
ing system  thus  established  must 
have  at  its  head  a  Central  Bank 
to  control  the  flow  of  credit  and 
the  general  price  level,  and  to 
regulate  foreign  exchange  opera- 
tions. A  National  Investment 
Board  must  also  be  set  up,  work- 
ing in  cooperation  with  the  social- 
ized banking  system  to  mobilize 
and  direct  the  unused  surpluses 
of  production  for  socially  desired 
purposes  determined  by  the 
planning  commission.  Insurance 
Companies,  which  provide  one  of 
the  main  channels  for  the  invest- 
ment of  individual  savings  and 
which,  under  the  present  com- 
petitive organization,  charge 
needlessly  high  premiums  for  the 
social  services  that  they  render, 
must  also  be  socialized.' 

In  answer  to  the  direct  ques- 
tion, 'Would  it  be  possible  for  you 
to  attain  your  goal  of  prosperity 
by  the  management  of  money?' 
(Maclean's  Magazine,  September 
1,  1943)  National  President  M.  J. 
Coldwell  wrote: 

'The  CCF  has  always  main- 
tained that  currency  and  credit 
must  come  fully     under     public 


control  in  order  that  the  flow  of 
credit  and  the  direction  of  invest- 
ment and  the  general  price  level 
may  be  regulated  in  accordance 
with  the  national  plan.  This  is  also 
necessary  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
trolling foreign  exchange  opera- 
tions. Furthermore,  it  is  our  be- 
lief that  the  control  of  finance 
is  a  most  essential  step  to  the 
control  of  the  whole  economy. 
For  these  reasons  we  have  al- 
ways advocated  the  socialization 
of  financial  institutions  and  their 
use  to  establish  a  proper  mone- 
tary credit  control  .  .  .  ' 

Coldwell  discloses  how  the 
CCF  would  attempt  to  carry  on 
such  a  system  in  his  answer  to 
the  question:  'Would  payments  to 
producers  be  restricted  to  the 
price  of  the  goods  in  the  open 
market  or  would  you  pay  subsi- 
dies?': 

'In  this  connection  I  would  fol- 
low the  practice  which  the  New 
Zealand  Labor  Government  has 
followed  with  such  signal  success. 
(For  example)  we  would  estab- 
lish a  guaranteed  minimum  price 
for  the  farmers'  products.  We 
would  pay  the  price  irrespective 
of  the  price  in  the  open  market. 
If  the  market  price  was  above  the 
guaranteed  price  the  surplus 
would  be  retained  in  a  special 
fund.  If  the  guaranteed  price 
fell  below  the  market  price  the 
difference    would    be    made    up 


16 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


3A&  H 


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from  the  surplus  fund.  Until  such 
time  as  such  a  surplus  fund  has 
accumulated,  the  difference 
would  have  to  be  made  up  from 
the  public  treasury  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  farmer  is  entitled 
to  a  living  standard  and  that  any 
drop  in  the  market  price  of  his 
produce  should  be  borne  by  the 
community  as  a  whole  and  not 
only  by  one  class.' 

The  foregoing  make  it  abund- 
antly clear  that  the  CCF  is  ig- 
norant of  the  full  significance  of 
the  impact  of  technology  on  the 
Price  System.  The  nature  of  the 
social  crisis  that  has  been  precipi- 
tated by  the  march  of  technology 
has  been  succinctly  analyzed  by 
Stuart  Chase,  the  well-known 
writer,  as  follows: 

'One  can  live  forty  days  with- 
out food,  four  days  without 
water,  but  not  four  minutes  with- 
out air.  Which  is  the  more  valu- 
able commodity?  But  air  is  so 
abundant  that  it  cannot  be  capita- 
lized and  sold.  Every  commodity 
made  by  mass  production  is  head- 
ed toward  the  status  of  air.  .  .  . 
Overproduction,  unmanageable 
surpluses,  show  that  many  com- 
modities have  already  reached 
that  point.  It  is,  then,  either  a 
new  system  consistent  with  the 
age  of  power,  or  back  a  hundred 
terrible  years  to  genuine  scare- 
ity.' 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


Public  ownership  of  resources 
and  finances  (by  itself)  would 
not  solve  our  economic  dilemma 
as  the  mechanics  of  operation 
would  not  be  changed.  The  title 
to  our  money  or  credit  makes  no 
difference  to  the  technology 
which  is  creating  abundance  and 
destroying  prices.  We  must  dis- 
card the  whole  system  of  mone- 
tary evaluations  not  just  private 
ownership  and  the  profit  motive. 

Instead  of  buying  and  selling 
goods  through  a  medium  of  ex- 
change we  must  install  a  mechan- 
ism of  distribution  that  will: 

(a)  Insure  a  continuous  distri- 
bution of  goods  and  services  to 
every  member  of  the  population; 
(b)  enable  all  goods  and  services 
to  be  measured  in  a  common  phy- 
sical denominator;  (c)  insure  con- 
tinuous balance  between  pro- 
duction and  consumption. 

On  the  basis  of  these  require- 
ments, let  us  consider  money  as 
a  possible  medium  of  distribution. 
Suppose,  for  instance,  that  it  were 
decided  that  20  billion  dollars 
worth  of  goods  and  services  were 
to  be  produced  in  a  given  year, 
and  suppose  further  that  20  bil- 
lion dollars  were  distributed  to 
the  population  during  that  time 
with  which  to  purchase  these 
goods  and  services.  Due  to  the 
fact  that  money  is  negotiable, 
and  that  certain  human  beings 
have  a  facility  for  getting  it. away 


17 


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from  other  human  beings,  this 
would  defeat  the  requirement 
that  distribution  must  reach  all 
human  beings.  Since  money  re- 
lationships are  all  based  upon 
'value,'  which  in  turn  is  a  func- 
tion of  scarcity,  money  is  not  a 
'measure'  of  anything.  Because 
money  can  be  saved,  there  is  no 
assurance  that  the  20  billion  dol- 
lars issued  for  use  in  a  given 
year  would  be  spent  in  that  year, 
and  if  it  were  not  used  this 
would  throw  production  and  con- 
sumption out  of  balance. 

Thus,  money  in  any  form  what- 
soever is  completely  inadequate 
as  a  medium  of  distribution  in  an 
economy  of  abundance.  Any  soc- 
ial system  employing  commodity 
evaluations  (commodity  evalu- 
ations are  the  basis  of  all  money) 
is  a  Price  System.  Hence  it  is  not 
possible  to  maintain  an  adequate 
distribution  system  in  an  econ- 
omy of  abundance  with  a  Price 
System  control. 

A  distribution  medium  pos- 
sessing the  properties  we  have  e- 
numerated,  however,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  physical  cost  of  pro- 
duction— the  non-human  energy 
degraded  in  the  production  of 
goods  and  services.  By  this  sys- 
tem all  books  and  records  per- 
taining to  consumption  are  kept 
by  the  Distribution  Sequence  of 
the  social  mechanism  and  con- 
suming power  is  granted  to  the 


public  in    the    form    of    Energy 
Certificates. 

When  making  purchases  of 
either  goods  or  services  an  indi- 
vidual surrenders  the  Energy 
Certificates  properly  identified 
and  signed.  These  surrendered 
certificates  are  then  perforated 
with  catalogue  numbers  of  the 
specific  item  and  amount  pur- 
chased, and  also  its  energy  cost. 
These  cancelled  certificates  then 
clear  through  the  record-keeping 
apparatus  of  the  Distribution 
Sequence.  The  clearing  of  the 
Energy  Certificates  gives  precise 
information  at  all  times  on  the 
state  of  consumption  of  every 
kind  of  commodity  or  service  on 
all  parts  of  the  North  American 
Continent  and  makes  it  possible 
to  gear  production  to  consump- 
tion. 

3.  With  the  advent  of  the  Tech- 
nate  we,  the  people,  will  deter- 
mine what  goods  are  to  be  pro- 
duced; under  the  CCF  program 
a  bureaucratic  body  would  be 
forced  to  make  that  decision  for 
us. 

Since  the  CCF  would  try  to 
carry  on  with  the  Price  System 
it  would  have  no  automatic  tech- 
nical accounting  mechanism 
whereby  production  could  be 
geared  to  consumption;  therefore, 
some  group  at  the  top  of  the  soc- 
ial structure  would  have  to  be 
given  the  authority  to  plan  and 


18 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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regulate  production.  An  examin- 
ation of  CCF  literature  provides 
ample  evidence  that  the  party 
would  attempt  to  do  this  if  it  got 
into  power. 

The  Regina  Manifesto  tells  us 
that  'in  the  establishment  of  a 
planned,  socialized  economic  or- 
der .  .  .  the  first  step  .  .  .  will  be 
the  setting  up  of  a  National  Plan- 
ning Commission  consisting  of  a 
small  body  of  economists,  engin- 
eers, and  statisticians  assisted  by 
an  appropriate  technical  staff. 
The  task  of  the  Commission  will 
be  to  plan  for  the  production,  dis- 
tribution, and  exchange  of  all 
goods  and  services  necessary  to 
the  efficient  functioning  of  the 
economy;  to  coordinate  the  activ- 
ities of  the  socialized  industries 
to  provide  for  a  satisfactory  bal- 
ance between  the  producing  and 
consuming  power;  and  to  carry 
on  continuous  research  into  all 
branches  of  the  national  economy 
in  order  to  acquire  the  detailed 
information  necessary  to  efficient 
planning.' 

Apparently  recognizing  the 
problem  they  will  be  faced  with 
in  trying  to  determine  consumer 
requirements  and  as  a  defense 
against  the  charge  of  'regimenta- 
tion and  bureaucracy,'  the 
CCFers  attempt  to  'get  out  from 
under'  by  saying  that  final  decis- 
ions will  be  made  by  the  Govern- 
ment and  not  by  their  'National 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


Planning  Commission.'  The  book, 
Make  This  Your  Canada,  written 
by  National  Chairman  Frank 
Scott  and  National  Secretary 
David  Lewis,  states: 

'It  is  essential  to  understand 
that  the  Planning  Commission  is 
not  an  executive  body.  It  is  not 
a  super-government  which  will 
"tell  us  what  to  eat  and  what  to 
wear  .  .  .,"  as  the  Tory  Press  de- 
lights to  describe  it.  It  will  do  the 
same  kind  of  job  for  the  whole  of 
Canada  as  various  war  commit- 
tees of  the  Cabinet  now  do  for 
separate  parts  of  the  economy;  it 
will  formulate  recommendations 
to  the  CCF  Government.  The 
Government,  responsible  to  Par- 
liament and  to  the  people,  will 
make  the  decisions  on  the  basis  of 
these  plans,  just  as  it  does  now 
with  the  budget  and  with  war 
policies.  Keeping  the  responsibil- 
ity for  planning  in  the  hands  of 
a  democratic  government  is  the 
guarantee  that  we  shall  have  no 
totalitarian  state  nor  a  society 
dominated  by  "experts."  ' 

Here  the  CCFers  are  up  against 
the  problem  that  confronts  every 
social  reformer  who  has  ever 
dreamed  of  installing  a  'planned 
economy  of  abundance'  under  a 
Price  System.  As  was  pointed  out 
previously,  the  operating  charac- 
teristics of  a  monetary  mechan- 
ism will  not  allow  production  to 
be  geared  to  consumption. 


19 


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As  long  as  we  can  only  produce 
a  scarcity  we  are  not  stymied  by 
this  difficulty;  and  today  we  are 
not  faced  with  it  because  the  war 
is  continually  creating  a  scarcity 
through  the  tremendous  des- 
truction of  materiel  on  the  fight- 
ing fronts.  But  after  the  war  our 
vastly  expanded  production  fa- 
cilities will  be  able  to  deliver  a 
smothering  flood  of  goods  and 
services. 

Any  political  party  that  at- 
tempted to  utilize  these  facilities 
to  the  utmost  and  still  maintain 
the  Price  System  (actually  an 
impossibility)  would  find  it  im- 
perative to  do  just  what  the  CCF 
plans  to  do.  It  would  have  to  say 
how  much  of  our  productive  ca- 
pacity would  go  into  shoes,  how 
much  into  food,  how  much  into 
automobiles,  etc.  Otherwise,  this 
country  would  be  like  a  huge 
factory  with  a  blind  man  at  the 
controls. 

As  long  as  the  Price  System  ex- 
ists, some  kind     of     bureaucratic 


body  will  have  to  plan,  regulate, 
and  ration  the  production  and 
distribution  of  goods  and  services. 
With  the  installation  of  the  Tech- 
nate,  however,  all  the  citizens  of 
North  America  will  freely  regis- 
ter their  economic  decisions  every 
time  they  present  Energy  Certif- 
icates for  commodities.  The  con- 
sumers will  say  what  is  to  .. 
made,  the  Functional  Control 
how  it  is  to  be  made. 

In  replying  to  letters  drawing 
his  attention  to  Technocracy,  M. 
J.  Coldwell  wrote:  Tf  we  are  to 
enjoy  genuine  democracy  the  ex- 
perts must  be,  as  Laski  says,  on 
tap  rather  than  on  top.'  When 
considered  in  the  light  of  the  a- 
bove  examination  of  both  pro- 
grams this  statement  ironically 
backfires.  Under  the  CCF  pro- 
gram— and  not  in  the  Technate — 
decisions  regarding  the  consumer 
will  have  to  come  from  the  'top.' 

This  brings  us  to  the  fourth 
fundamental  difference  between 
Technocracy  and  the  CCF. 

— Donald  Bruce 


(continued  next  month) 


•fa  EVEN  RADICALISM  is  hampered  by  the  cultural  lag.  Instead  of  linking  their  ac- 
tivities and  interests  with  a  program  of  contemporaneous  perspective,  such  as  Tech- 
nocracy, most  radicals  conduct  their  discussions  and  plan  their  program  within  the 
restrictions  imposed  by  the  dialectic  of  Karl  Marx,  who  is,  in  a  way,  as  outmoded  as 
Adam  Smith  or  Herbert  Spencer.  Marx  knew  nothing  of  the  Second  Industrial  Revolu- 
tion or  of  contemporary  finance  capital.  ■ — Dr.  Harry  Elmer  Barnes 


20 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


lews  'Values' 


This  war  is  being  tvon  not  by  personal  valor  but  by  the  greater  mob- 
ilized might  of  men  and  resources,  welded  into  unified  effectiveness 
by  organization  on  a  national  scale  with  its  concomitant  of  national 
valor. 


WHILE  Ottawa  persists  in 
trying  to  hold  down  the 
National  issue  of  Total  Conscrip- 
tion by  sitting  on  it,  the  fourth 
estate  dutifully  aids  by  attempt- 
ing to  steer  public  awareness  a- 
way  from  it,  trying  to  hold  the 
public  attitude  toward  the  war 
down  to  a  sticky  personal  and 
subjective  level. 

Newspapermen  have  always 
enjoyed  calling  themselves  'the 
moulders  of  public  opinion.'  The 
unconscious  irony  in  this  appel- 
lation stands  out  sharply  when 
considered  in  the  light  of  princi- 
ples of  newswriting  laid  down  by 
Bleyer  and  other  maestros  of  the 
journalistic  art.  Newswriting  is 
supposed  to  be  the  presenting  of 
facts  in  the  march  of  events,  in 
the  order  of  their  importance 
within  the  various  departments 
of  the  paper:  world  news  on  the 
front  page,  local  news  in  the 
second  section. 

If  such  principles  are  adhered 
to,  a  newsman's  task  is  the  sober, 
relentless  presentation  of  undis- 
puted facts  in  the  logical  expect- 
ation that  the  'opinions'  of  read- 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


ers  of  ordinary  education  and  in- 
telligence ultimately  make  for  ap- 
propriate national,  civic  and  per- 
sonal policies.  But  deliberate 
'moulding  of  public  opinion'  as  a 
directed  policy  must  involve  dis- 
tortion or  suppression  of  factual 
elements  in  the  news. 

These  moulders  of  public  opin- 
ion systematically  continue  to  dis- 
regard the  objective  importance 
of  daily  events,  and  to  twist  them 
by  'playing  up'  and  'playing 
down'  to  conform  to  editorial 
policies  which  are  uniformly 
found  to  have  a  political  axe  to 
grind  or  a  business  bone  to  pick. 
In  this  system  of  personal  or 
group  advantage  and  disadvan- 
tage, the  interests  of  dominant 
individuals  or  groups  seldom 
coincide  with  the  interests  of  the 
people  of  Canada  as  a  whole,  un- 
less a  situation  is  seen  by  all  to 
be  a  struggle  for  National  Sur- 
vival. Thanks  to  the  gallant  ef- 
forts of  certain  of  our  allies 
(notably  the  Russians)  and  to  the 
military  blunders  of  the  enemy, 
Canada  is  in  little  immediate 
danger  of  having  to  fight  for  her 


21 


life.  The  advantages  of  dominant 
political  and  business  groups  con- 
tinue to  be  bought  at  the  expense 
of  the  greater  number. 

The  issue  of  Total  Conscrip- 
tion, which  may  have  been  raised 
in  Ottawa  as  a  political  man- 
oeuvre and  intended  to  be  of  lim- 
ited application,  has  flared  up 
and  revealed  itself  as  the  most 
lively  underlying  issue  of  this 
time.  Evidently  business  and  po- 
litics, intent  upon  the  group- 
versus-group  scramble  for  war- 
time loot — the  capitalization  of  a 
National  calamity  for  all  it  will 
bring — forget  that  the  issue  of 
National  Service  from  All  and 
Profits  to  None  is  a  fundamental 
and  very  real  issue  of  the  war  it- 
self. 

Fascism  undertakes  military 
aggression  in  order  to  secure 
the  standing  prerogatives  of 
group  wangling  at  home,  and  if 
possible  to  expand  them  abroad. 
The  will  with  which  Canada  en- 
gages in  this  war  is  the  National 
will  to  exterminate  fascism 
wherever  it  exists.  But  of  all  the 
jockeying,  jostling  groups  repre- 
sented at  Ottawa,  not  one  desires 
to  place  Canada  on  a  footing  of 
designed  National  Direction 
which  will  sacrifice,  even  temp- 
orarily, the  dominant  position  of 
these  groups  in  order  to  achieve 
this  end.  Is  Canada  supposed  to 
be    unaware    that   the    non-profit 


mobilization  of  manpower  alone, 
whether  by  means  of  conscription 
or  moral  suasion,  while  economic 
and  political  advantage  remain 
the  active  incentives  of  the  eco- 
nomic and  political  groups,  is  in 
itself  a  pattern  of  incipient  fas- 
cism? 

In  view  of  such  an  amazing 
situation  it  is  often  a  source  of 
grim  amusement  to  Technocrats 
to  observe  the  relative  emphasis 
given  to  the  various  stories  on  the 
front  page  of  a  daily  newspaper 
by  its  editors.  Let  us  cite  a  cur- 
rent example: 

Recently  a  valiant  fusilier  from 
New  Westminster  known  as  Pri- 
vate Smoky  Smith  threw  his 
weight  around  somewhere  on  the 
western  front  with  a  personal 
courage  and  effectiveness  so  ap- 
parent that  he  was  awarded  the 
Victoria  Cross.  Now  his  military 
deeds  have  been  told  and  retold, 
worn  thin  with  the  telling.  Next 
the  details  of  his  daily  comings 
and  goings,  the  minutiae  of  his 
trip  home  have  been  counted 
and  recounted — anything  that 
will  keep  the  story  alive.  Already 
the  affairs  of  Smoky  Smith  have 
occupied  a  greater  total  of  news 
space  in  Vancouver  papers  than 
the  Japanese  attack  on  Pearl 
Harbor.  He  has  returned  to  New 
Westminster  today.  Now,  with 
his  arrival,  the  bottom  of  the  bar- 
rel of  possible    human    incident 


22 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


I  '  J  Jf 

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1 1 1 1 1 1 


has  surely  been  scraped;  but  the 
scrapings  have  today  provided 
some  1500  words  in  a  single  issue 
of  a  large  Canadian  daily — not  a 
home-town  paper  at  that! 

This  date — Tuesday,  December 
26,  1944 — the  relative  'values'  of 
the  various  items  of  world  news 
were  represented  in  front  page 
space  (et  seq.)  in  the  paper  above 
referred  to,  as  follows: 

'Hun  4  Miles  from  Meuse' — a  2- 
column  head  followed  by  17  V2 
column  inches  stating  that  the 
German  army  continues  to  gain 
ground  against  numerically  sup- 
erior allied  armies. 

'Elas  Try  to  Murder  Churchill' 
— a  1-column  head  followed  by 
9x/4  column  inches  on  an  incident 
in  one  of  the  most  interesting 
power-politics  end-plays  of  the 
war. 

'Pte.  Ernest  A.  (VC)  Smith 
Comes  Home  to  Family  on  Christ- 
mas Day' — full-page  (8-column) 
head  followed  by  34  column 
inches  of  pictures  spread  across 
the  page,  and  8  column  inches  of 
sub-captions. 

'  "Smoky"  Flies,  Just  Gets  Here 
for  Yule' — a  3-column  head  fol- 
lowed by  35 V4  column  inches  of 
narrative. 

'  "GOSH!"— VC's  Home  Greet- 
ing'— a  2-column  head  followed 
by  35 V2  column  inches  of  narra- 
tive. 

All  other  front  page  news,  com- 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


plete  with  heads,  occupied  a  total 
of  29  column  inches. 

Technocracy  salutes  the  per- 
sonal intestinal  fortitude  of  Pri- 
vate Smoky  Smith,  and  that  of 
any  wearer  of  the  Victoria  Cross. 
Technocracy  is  proud  that  Cana- 
dian soldiers  are  exhibiting  that 
calibre.  But  Technocracy  points 
out  that  the  editors  are  indulging 
in  an  extremely  low  editorial  vul- 
garism in  this  plastering  of  world 
news  sections  with  intimate  per- 
sonal matter.  They  are  guilty  of 
outrageously  muddling  the  rela- 
tive importance  of  the  news  ele- 
ments involved.  The  newspapers 
of  Canada  have  stooped  to  an 
abuse  of  soap-saga  sensationalism 
in  their  attempt  to  make  a  two- 
bit  matinee  of  a  man's  courageous 
act,  and  a  red-jacketed  monkey 
of  a  gallant  Canadian  soldier, 
Private  Smith.  This  is  only  one 
among  many  well-known  ex- 
amples of  this  indulgence. 

Technocracy  asserts  that  the 
editors  are  deliberately  swamp- 
ing front  pages  with  irrelevant 
personal  accounts  of  this  and  oth- 
er winners  of  military  decorations 
in  a  campaign  evidently  aimed 
at  whooping  up  public  enthusi- 
asm to  a  point  of  maudlin  wor- 
ship of  personal  valor.  Yet  in  this 
war  the  great  bulk  of  the  damage 
is  being  done  at  long,  range  by 
men  whose  personal  courage  is 
of    little    importance    relative    to 


23 


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their  skill  as  operators  of  war 
technology.  The  bulk  of  human 
casualties  are  inflicted  by  ma- 
chine operators  upon  enemies 
they  cannot  possibly  see.  This 
war  is  being  won  not  by  personal 
valor  but  by  the  greater  mobiliz- 
ed might  of  men  and  resources, 
welded  into  unified  effectiveness 
by  organization  on  the  national 
scale,  with  its  concomitant  morale 
of  national  valor. 

The  political  government  of 
this  Dominion  is  dealing  with  a 
rising  demand  for  Total  Conscrip- 
tion of  Men,  Machines,  Materiel 
and  Money,  first,  by  pretending 
it  doesn't  exist,  and  second,  by 
passing  the  buck  of  war  respon- 
sibility back  to  the  Canadian 
people  as  individuals  by  means 
of  a  spurious  moral  'challenge'. 
The  tiresome  recruiting  poster 
captioned  "Have  I  the  guts?'  is 
a  further  example  of  this  glori- 
fication    of     relatively     inconse- 


quential personal  valor.  In  the 
subtle  shaping  of  editorial  policies 
throughout  Canada's  bigger 
dailies,  the  presentation  of  the 
day's  news  is  made  to  reek  with 
implications  of  a  subjective  and 
entirely  phoney  concept  that  the 
course  of  Canada's  war  effort  de- 
pends in  some  way  upon  the 
'will',  the  'fortitude',  the  'courage' 
with  which  'we'  as  individuals 
do  'our  job' — which,  apart  from 
the  minor  interference-type  con- 
trol exercised  by  the  euphemis- 
tically-named National  Selective 
Service,  is  evidently  just  what- 
ever we  randomly  feel  like  do- 
ing! 

Ottawa's  niggling  propaganda 
of  finger-pointing  on  the  'Have  I 
the  guts?'  theme  is  an  evasion  of 
responsibility  of  a  situation  of 
National  emergency.  It  is  a  tacit 
admission  that  Ottawa  has  not. 
— Ted  Fearman 


■fa  A  MOTOR  that  runs  at  60,000  revolutions  per  minute!  That  is  1,000  revolutions 
each  second.  Few  motors  of  appreciable  power,  if  any,  have  ever  turned  so  fast.  Be- 
cause such  a  high  rotational  velocity  presents  many  mechanical  difficulties  with  belts 
and  pulleys,  engineers  have  been  seeking  to  do  this  with  direct-drive  electric  motors. 
Last  year  research  work  was  completed  that  permitted  construction  of  a  60,000-r.p.m. 
motor.  This  is  an  induction  motor  supplied  from  a  1,000-cycle  generator  and  delivers 
4  h.p.  at  this  speed.  The  rotor  is  only  one  and  three-quarter  inches  in  diameter  and 
two  inches  long.  Even  so,  the  centrifugal  stresses  at  the  surface  of  the  rotor  reach  about 
15,000  pounds  per  square  inch.  This  60,000-r.p.m.  motor  may  soon  be  overshadowed 
by  one  running  at  twice  this  speed — 120,000-r.p.m.  Such  a  motor  is  still  in  the  course 
of  research-laboratory  development.  — Westinghouse  Wartime  Engineering 


24 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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Agriculture  -  Ancient  and  Modern 


Regardless  of  whether  the  agriculture  of  the  future  ultimately  re- 
mains predominately  in  the  out-of-doors  stage  or  comes  to  resemble 
an  agricultural  factory,  the  fact  remains  that  the  application  of  the 
technological  methods  will  revolutionize  it  to  where  present  methods 
are  truly  primitive  in  comparison. — Technocracy  Study  Course 


SEVENTY  centuries  of  human 
toil — seven  thousand  years  of 
recorded  history  during  which 
man  has  become  accustomed  to 
tilling  the  soil  with  his  hands  and 
the  help  of  a  few  crude  tools  to 
enable  him  to  wrest  from  the 
earth  the  food  necessary  to  keep 
him  alive. 

Such  is  the  catalog  of  man's 
achievement  until  the  past  few 
years.  Such  is  man's  achievement 
throughout  the  greater  part  of 
this  world  unto  this  day.  The 
growing  of  food  in  the  past  has 
always  been  associated,  like  the 
work  of  the  cobbler  in  Chu  Chin 
Chow,  with  back-breaking  toil 
'from  rise  of  sun  till  set  of  moon'; 
with  callouses  and  with  tanned 
skin;  with  hoe  and  with  plow- 
share; with  sweat  and  also  with 
tears  when  the  weather  disap- 
pointed, and  the  crops  failed  to 
bring  forth  the  expected  incre- 
ment of  the  seed.  Man  was  a- 
fraid.  He  was  afraid  of  starvation 
but  knew  no  manner  in  which  he 
could  with  surety  avoid  starva- 
tion, for  he  was  primitive  and  he 
delved  not  into  the  inner  myster- 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


ies  of  science  and  technology. 
Such  knowledge  was  for  his 
witch-doctor  or  his  priest  but  not 
for  him.  And  right  well  and  truly 
did  they  ensure  that  he  could  not 
learn  those  inner  mysteries,  for 
therein  lay  their  mastership. 

It  therefore  required  seventy 
centuries  for  man  to  realize  that 
all  his  growing  of  plants  for  food 
and  clothing  could  succinctly  be 
stated  in  but  a  few  words:  Agri- 
culture is  fundamentally  a  chemi- 
cal industry  wherein  matter  from 
some  growing  medium,  such  as 
the  soil,  is  combined  with  that 
from  the  atmosphere  with  the 
help  of  solar  radiation  and  other 
energy  into  various  use  products. 
When  he  learned  that  he  began 
to  go  places,  and  in  going  places 
he  has  seen  many  things. 

From  a  technological  point  of 
view,  agriculture  is  still  probably 
our  most  primitve  and  backward 
industry.  Land  is  still  cultivated 
in  small  patches  by  people  whose 
knowledge  is  largely  of  a  handi- 
craft type  and  is  handed  down 
from  father  to  son.  Soils  are  al- 
lowed to  waste  away  by  erosion 


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or  by  lack  of  fertilization,  or  are 
permitted  to  blow  away  as  dust 
from  denuded  areas;  farm  imple- 
ments are  used  for  the  most  part 
for  only  a  few  weeks  of  the  year 


nocracy  Study  Course  that  it  is 
known  that  there  is  a  theoretical 
maximum  yield  per  acre  where 
crops  are  grown  in  the  normal 
manner  in  the  out-of-doors.  Crops 


TABLE  1* 

Calculated  Known  Yielding    Power 

Kind  of  Crop                                Perultimate  yielding  In    Percent 

Yield  Power  Of    Perultimate 

Corn    225  bu.  225.0  bu.  100.0 

Wheat 171  bu.  122.5  bu.  71.6 

Oats 395  bu.  245.7  bu.  62.2 

Barley  308  bu.  122.5  bu.  39.7 

Rye  198  bu.  54.4  bu.  27.4 

Potatoes 1330  bu.  1156.0  bu.  86.8 

Sugar  Beets 53  tons  42.3  tons  80.0 

Sugar  Cane  185  tons  180.0  tons  97.2 

Cotton 4.6  bales  3.5  bales  76.1 

♦Reshaping  Agriculture,  O.  W.  Willcox  (1934),  p.  66 


and  more  often  than  not  lie  idle 
and  exposed  to  the  weather  for 
the  rest  of  the  time. 

While  it  is  true  that  agriculture 
is  practiced  today  on  most  of  our 
farms  in  almost  the  same  manner 
as  by  the  ancients,  this  cannot  be 
said  of  technological  knowledge 
and  its  application  by  the  agro- 
biologist, who  looks  upon  plants 
merely  as  chemical  laboratories 
for  converting  certain  inorganic 
substances — principally  phos- 

phates, potash  and  nitrogen — 
known  as  plant  foods  into  forms 
useful  both  as  food  and  as  raw 
materials  for  industrial  uses. 

We    further    learn   from   Tech- 


may  approach  this  maximum  but 
cannot  exceed  it,  for  it  is  deter- 
mined by  the  amount  of  nitrogen 
that  may  be  extracted  from  the 
soil  per  acre.  The  amount  of  nit- 
rogen extraction  that  may  not  be 
exceeded  by  any  one  crop  in  a 
given  cycle  of  growth  is  ap- 
proximately 320  pounds  per  acre. 
In  order  that  this  figure  of  320 
pounds  of  nitrogen  may  be  with- 
drawn it  is  required  that  there 
be  present  2,230  pounds  of  nitro- 
gen per  acre.  By  knowing  the  a- 
mount  of  nitrogen  withdrawn 
from  the  soil  to  produce  one  bus- 
hel of  corn,  or  wheat,  or  of  pota- 
toes,  one   ton   of   sugar   cane,   or 


26 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


1 1 


one  bale  of  cotton,  one  has  mere- 
ly to  divide  this  amount  of  320 
pounds  of  nitrogen  per  acre  by 
that  figure  in  order  to  determine 
the  maximum  possible  yield  of  the 
crop  under  consideration.  These 
maximum  possible  or  perultimate 
yields,  together  with  yields  that 
have  already  been  achieved,  are 
given  by  O.  W.  Willcox  in  his 
book  Reshaping  Agriculture,  and 
are  reproduced  in  tables  1  and  2. 
From  a  glance  at  these  tables 
one  can  observe  that  our  North 
American  agriculture  today  is 
operating  at  something  like  10 
percent  of  the  theoretical  maxi- 
mum— an  extremely  low  efficien- 


tly theoretical  maximum.  With 
our  present  agrobiological  know- 
ledge it  would  present  little  diffi- 
culty to  raise  this  production  to 
at  least  50  percent  of  the  perul- 
timate  maximum. 

At  this  point  it  is  of  interest  to 
mention  that  Canadian  agricul- 
tural figures  have  recorded  a  40 
percent  production  rise  since  the 
commencement  of  World  War  II 
while  at  the  same  time  recording 
a  drop  in  the  total  number  of  per- 
sons employed  on  Canadian  farms 
of  500,000.  This  increase  in  pro- 
duction was  accomplished  at  a 
time  when  it  was  not  possible  to 
obtain  much  in  the  way  of  mod- 


Bra 


TABLE  2* 

Kind  of  Crop                                   Aver.    Acre  Percent  of                             Percent    of 

Yield,    U.S.  Perultimate  Known   Max. 

Corn     25.5  bu.  10.8  10.8 

Wheat  14.4  bu.  8.4  11.7 

Oats    30.4  bu.  7.7  12.3 

Barley  24.1  bu.  7.8  19.6 

Rye  12.8  bu.  6.4  23.5 

Potatoes         114.9  bu.  8.6  9.0 

Sugar  Beets  11.1  tons  20.9  26.1 

Sugar  Cane 16.4  tons  9.1  22.4 

Cotton 0.32  bales  6.9  9.1 

^Reshaping  Agriculture,  O.  W.  Willcox  (1934),  p.  66 


cy.  When  our  current  production 
figures  are  taken  from  actual 
field  operations  at  their  best,  the 
rise  is  only  to  15  percent,  still 
very  low  when   compared     with 


em  farm  equipment.  Resolving 
this  increased  production,  and  as- 
suming that  the  total  acreage 
under  production  was  approxi- 
mately the  same  as  in  1938,  Ca- 


FEBRUARY,  1945 


27 


nadian  production  has  attained 
14  percent  of  the  perultimate 
maximum  yield. 

If  we  could  step  up  our  agri- 
cultural production  to  50  percent 
of  efficiency,  it  would  mean  that 
we  could  produce  as  much  with 
one-fifth  of  the  land  area  now 
under  cultivation  and  with  at 
most  one-fifth  of  the  total  man- 
hours  now  required. 

But  the  soil  is  not  the  only 
medium  in  which  plant  life  will 
thrive.  At  its  best  soil  is  a  very 
poor  second.  .Here  we  will  pause 
awhile  and  permit  the  roars  of 
outraged  protest  from  some  six 
million  farms  in  North  America 
to    subside. 

At  its  best,  we  repeat,  soil  is  a 
very  poor  second.  Plants  grown 
in  soil  are  prone  to  many  di- 
seases, some  of  which  are  not  yet 
conquered  by  science  or  technol- 
ogy and  others  which  may  be 
controlled  but  which  are  never- 
theless costly  in  the  wastage  of 
both  man-hours  and  product. 
Plants  have  been  grown  most 
successfully  in  many  other  media 
— gravel,  water,  sawdust,  cinders 
and  sand. 

'Hydroponics'  is  the  general 
term  applied  to  this  radical  de- 
parture from  the  age-old  type  of 
agriculture  of  the  soil,  and  where 
the  plants  are  grown  in  a  medium 
which  of  itself  contains  no  plant 
food  but  which  is  required  to  be 


the  bearer  of  that  food. 

Soilless  growth  was  first  'born' 
over  a  century-and-a-quarter  ago 
on  the  banks  of  the  River  Rhine 
in  France,  when  Zack,  a  French- 
man, discovered  that  decaying 
verdure  accumulated  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  could  be  used  to 
start  growth  in  twigs.  Little  more 
was  done  for  almost  a  century, 
doubtless  because  of  man's  inher- 
ent dislike  of  anything  new;  his 
distrust  of  something  produced  in 
a  manner  different  from  that  to 
which  he  had  become  accustomed 
throughout  the  ages.  Slowly  how- 
ever the  technologist  became  a- 
ware  that  all  plants  derived 
their  foods  from  the  medium  in 
which  they  grew  and  they  de- 
termined the  chemical  and  miner- 
al foods  required  for  healthy 
plant  growth. 

Experiments  proved  that  the 
product  when  fed  these  foods 
held  in  suspension  in  water  was 
not  unlike  the  product  which  had 
been  grown  for  so  many  centur- 
ies in  soil.  And  so  during  the  past 
30  years  has  developed  the  new 
culture  of  producing  foods 
grown  without  soil. 

Much  research  has  been  car- 
ried out  in  Germany,  Russia  and 
in  the  North  American  Contin- 
ent, and  it  is  in  the  latter  land 
area  that  results  have  perhaps 
been  most  spectacular. 

Agriculture,   vintage   of   '45,   is 


28 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


1 1     .-■"■->.Ly  1 1 


41 


doubtless  giving  Ceres  the  shiv- 
ers as  she  surveys  modern  man 
harvesting  crops  from  tanks  of 
gravel,  water,  sawdust,  sand,  or 
cinders;  and  well  she  might  shiv- 
er, for  she  must  face  many  -more 
jolts  before  the  North  American 
technologist  decides  he  has  done 
all  it  is  possible  to  accomplish  in 
this  field.  At  the  moment  he  is 
still  a  baby  beginning  to  walk, 
and  doing  it  rather  hesitatingly. 
But  even  so  he  is  taking  seven- 
league  strides. 

Most  readers  will  remember 
some  colorful  character  in  their 
town  who  decided  a  few  years  a- 
go  to  grow  some  tomatoes  in  wa- 
ter. Most  of  these  readers  will  re- 
call that  'it  couldn't  be  done!'  And 
most  readers  will  now  admit  that 
it  has  been  done,  and  that  once 
again  old  prejudices  and  super- 
stitions and  folkways  were  forced 
into  discard  by  the  scientific  ap- 
plication of  knowledge  and  re- 
search. It  is  so  throughout  all 
walks  of  life  in  North  America 
and  will  thus  continue  with  ever- 
quickening  pace. 

Hydroponics  is  with  us  today, 
and  hydroponics  is  here  to  stay. 
It  may  not  stay  with  us  as  long  as 
many  people  think  for  even  in  its 
infancy  it  may  be  shouldered  out 
by  still  another  vigorous  baby  of 
whom  we  shall  learn  more  later. 

The  majority  of  research  has 
been  undertaken  with  the  use  of 


water  as  the  medium  through 
which  the  plant  roots  get  their 
foods.  A  trough  or  tank  of  water 
is  covered  with  wire  meshing 
upon  which  rests  a  bed  of  straw 
and  excelsior.  Into  this  'seed- 
bed' the  seeds  are  sown,  the 
roots  strike  down  to  the  water 
and  derive  their  nourishment 
from  the  chemicals  held  in  solu- 
tion therein.  This  is  straight  hy- 
droponics and  is  the  method 
most  widely  used  today. 

When  harvested  the  product  is 
more  uniform  in  size  and  of  high- 
er mineral  content  than  similar 
fruit  or  vegetables  grown  in  soil. 
The  vitality  of  the  growing  plants 
is  much  higher  and  they  are  of 
consequence  better  able  to  resist 
disease.  This  makes  for  less  plant 
strain  in  just  existing  and  per- 
mits the  plant  to  specialize  in  the 
production  of  flower  or  fruit. 
This  in  turn  results  in  higher 
yield  per  plant  and  a  second 
factor  which  is  just  as  important 
is  that  of  plant  spacing.  In  soil- 
grown  tomatoes,  for  instance, 
they  must  be  spaced  16  inches  a- 
part,  whereas  in  water  culture 
the  plants  can  be  spaced  8  inches 
apart  giving  a  vastly  higher 
plant  growth  per  acre. 

Plants  grown  with  water  as  the 
carrier  of  the  mineral-chemical 
plant  food  are  subject  neither  to 
soil  pests  nor  to  weeds,  both  of 
which    are    disastrous    crop-cur- 


FEBRUARY,  1945 


29 


RH  ■■ 


tailers.  As  mentioned  earlier,  soil- 
less grown  plants  are  healthier 
for  they  do  not  have  to  face  the 
hazards  of  these  soil  pests  nor 
weeds  and  because  of  their  vital- 
ity they  are  likewise  far  more  re- 
sistant to  the  numerous  flying  in- 
sects which  ravage  many  soil 
grown  plants.  Scientific  feeding, 
which  does  not  mean  'coddling', 
pays  dividends  with  unfailing  re- 
gularity. 

To  those  people  who  have 
heard  little  or  nothing  of  hydro- 
ponics these  facts  may  be  sur- 
prising.. They  may  immediately 
look  around  in  defense  of  soil, 
and  endeavour  to  unearth  disad- 
vantages with  soilless  growth, 
arguing  that  it  is  impossible 
that  there  be  none —  there  always 
are!  Unfortunately  for  those 
sceptics  there  appears  to  be  little 
disadvantageous  to  hydroponics 
when  it  is  compared  with  soil 
grown  agriculture. 

The  only  particular  in  which 
Old  Mother  Earth  is  better  suited 
to  the  growing  of  plants  than  a 
water  solution  is  in  the  matter  of 
root  aeration.  Without  this  a 
plant  would  perish,  and  the  soil 
has  a  natural  supply  of  air 
throughout  its  depth;  worms  aid 
in  maintaining  the  air  supply 
channels;  plowing  and  hoeing 
continue  this  work.  In  water 
however  there  are  no  such  pock- 
ets of  air  for  the  roots  to  use,  and 


water  culture  therefore  has  to 
take  this  matter  into  considera- 
tion and  overcome  the  difficulty 
by  providing  the  aeration  neces- 
sary. It  is  a  simple  process  ac- 
complished by  draining  off  the 
solution  from  the  tanks,  allowing 
the  roots  a  sufficient  period  for 
aeration  and  finally  returning 
the  solution  to  the  tank  for  furth- 
er feeding  purposes.  Alternately 
air  may  be  pumped  into  the 
water  as  this  is  being  fed  into 
the  tank. 

All  in  all  hydroponics  has  come 
a  long,  long  way  since  Zack  first 
experimented  with  his  twigs  on 
the  bank  of  the  Rhine  more  than 
125  years  ago.  It  bids  fair  to  go 
much  further  yet  and  to  conquer 
more  distant  horizons  in  the  com- 
ing years. 

We  will  now  consider  still 
another  refinement  in  soilless 
culture,  a  refinement  that  ap- 
pears likely  to  supersede  the 
now  fairly  well  known  operation 
of  hydroponics  as  hydroponics 
might  supersede  soil  culture. 

For  a  number  of  years  there 
has  lived  in  Vancouver,  B.  C.  a 
Welsh-born  Canadian  citizen,  Mr. 
G.  K.  Allen  who  has  more  than 
a  passing  acquaintance  with 
hydroponics.  He  has  carried  the 
hobby  far  beyond  the  stage  of  ex- 
perimentation in  the  basement  or 
the  garage,  far  beyond  the  crude 
tray  of  excelsior  and  straw  laid 


30 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


avnta 


A       B 


Mir. 


over  meshing  above  a  tank  of 
chemically-fed  water,  and  on  in- 
to commercialization  and  a  new 
method  of  accomplishment,  the 
results  of  his  years  of  toil,  trial 
and  error,  test  and  re-test,  samp- 
ling and  re-sampling. 

During  the  past  13  years  he  has 
been  experimenting  with  various 
types  of  inert  matter  for  use  as 
the  growing  media  for  his  plants. 
He  has  used  sawdust,  a  costly 
process  requiring  the  removal  of 
pitch  and  turpentine  from  the 
chips;  cinders,  which  have  some 
heat-retaining  qualities  that  are 
not  present  in  other  inert  media; 
water,  as  outlined  earlier;  and 
finally  a  mixture  of  75  percent 
crushed  torpedo  gravel  and  25 
percent  coarse  sand. 

He  has  at  his  finger  tips  not 
only  the  book  theory  of  soilless 
culture  but  something  far  more 
valuable  to  North  American  agri- 
culture— the  practical  experience 
of  finding  out  how  best  to  grow 
plants,  and  why.  He  has  evolved 
what  is  probably  the  finest  min- 
eral solution  and  growing  medi- 
um known  to  mankind  today, 
and  his  results  loudly  acclaim 
his  method,  his  patience,  and  his 
infinite  care. 

He  uses  a  tank  built  either  of 
concrete  for  permanence  or  2 
inch  wood  bolted  together  to  pre- 
vent leakage.  Into  this  he  places 
his     gravel     and     sand     mixture 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


while  along  the  bottom  of  the 
tank  runs  a  channel  connected 
at  each  end  with  a  hose.  The 
water  solution  is  fed  into  the 
tank  through  one  end  and  is 
drained  off  at  the  other  by  one 
of  three  methods. 

For  the  amateur  the  easiest 
feeding  process  is  by  suspending 
a  bucket  above  the  tank  and 
connected  with  it  by  a  hose;  per- 
mitting the  solution  to  flow  into 
the  tank  and  then  lowering  the 
bucket  until  the  solution  returns 
once  again  into  the  bucket,  to  be 
used  at  the  next  meal  time.  This 
procedure  will  suffice  for  35  to 
40  plants  and  is  inexpensive. 
Commercial  growers  usually  sy- 
phon their  solution  into  the 
tanks,  and  later  syphon  it  off  a- 
gain,  or  use  a  pumping  system  if 
the  tanks  are  large  enough  to 
warrant  this  installation. 

Mr.  Allen  has  found  that  by 
suspending  a  bottle  of  concen- 
trated solution  above  his  tanks, 
and  drip-feeding  it  into  them  at 
the  rate  of  24  drips  per  hour,  he 
can  best  regulate  the  growth  of 
the  plants  and  at  the  same  time 
assure  the  correct  percentages 
of  the  mineral  and  chemical  con- 
tent of  the  solution  in  strict  ac- 
cordance with  the  plants'  own 
demands. 

By  the  use  of  gravel  and  sand 
as  his  plant  food  medium,  and  at 
the  same  time  growing  his  plants 


31 


j ;    ■ 

■H 


TmSt 

mm 


■ 


mm 


*& 


raf& 


Vwr.' 


_HH_ 


'*3 


m 


mm 

KJ9m    A  >zs'r~ 


directly  in  the  gravel,  he  com- 
bines the  plant  food  medium  with 
the  supporting  medium,  a  dis- 
tinct advantage  in  itself  over 
straight  hydroponics.  Into  this 
bed  of  gravel  he  plants  tomatoes, 
auratum  lilies,  carnations,  be- 
gonias, potatoes,  and  other  root 
vegetables.  The  roots  therefore 
have  a  firm  but  easily  traversed 
growing  medium  through  which 
to  sprawl,  take  hold  for  support, 
and  derive  their  nourishment. 

To  feed  his  plants  he  pumps 
the  water  solution  through  the 
tanks  every  two  or  three  days, 
allowing  whatever  solution,  which 
will  not  by  capillary  attraction  re- 
main suspended  in  the  gravel,  to 
drain  out  at  the  other  end.  The 
solution  remaining  among  the 
gravel  and  sand  moistens  it  and 
thus  gives  both  food  and  drink 
to  the  plants  growing  there. 

The  plants  therefore  are  not 
expected  to  live  with  'wet  feet' 
in  perpetuity  as  is  the  normal 
process  with  the  water  tank  of 
straight  hydroponics.  Because  ex- 
cess moisture  is  drained  off,  and 
the  plant  uses  much  of  which  re- 
mains to  feed  upon,  perfect  aera- 
tion of  the  roots  is  possible  all 
the  time.  In  addition,  he  has  ar- 
ranged to  pump  air  into  the  solu- 
tion as  it  is  being  fed  into  the 
tanks,  ensuring  that  what  solu- 
tion is  left  in  the  tank  after 
draining  is  well     aerated.     Thus 


the  hair  roots  of  the  growing 
plants  are  given  every  possible 
assistance  in  their  search  for 
food,  moisture,  and  air. 

All  growing  plants  make  vary- 
ing demands  each  day  of  their 
life  upon  the  various  minerals 
and  chemicals  upon  which  the 
plants  thrive  throughout  their 
span  of  existence.  In  soil  it  is  no 
easy  matter  to  conduct  compre- 
hensive and  conclusive  soil  tests 
of  every  square  yard  of  a  large 
farm  to  determine  what  percent- 
age of  each  mineral  the  plant 
used  up  yesterday,  and  the  con- 
sequent feeding,  even  with  com- 
mercial fertilizers  and  manure,  is 
of  necessity  'by  guess  and  by 
god.'  But  not  so  with  gravel  cul- 
ture as  perfected  by  Mr.  Allen, 
who  has  given  the  name  'Kemi- 
Kulture'  to  his  process.  He  is 
readily  able  to  take  a  test  tube 
sample  of  every  tank  every  day 
and  thereby  ascertain  what  per- 
centages of  every  mineral  his 
plants  demanded  during  the  past 
24  hours.  Knowing  this,  it  is  a 
simple  matter  for  him  to  in- 
crease or  decrease  the  strength 
of  those  minerals  in  the  solution 
he  is  about  to  feed  them,  and  to 
maintain  a  perfect  balance  or 
blend  in  his  solution  governed 
precisely  by  the  plant's  own 
growth  demands.  In  this  way  his 
plants  are  not  hindered  in  their 
growth   by    searching    further   a- 


32 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


8GSI: 

E&Hi  ■■ 

DSL 

MHHSHhQ 

'  "St.        EW 

H 

H 

Bl    j."'-       H3?s 

k 


WEim 


field  in  their  root  structure  for 
certain  necessary  chemicals  or 
minerals  needed  for  the  immedi- 
ate stage  of  their  growth,  but  can 
utilize  all  their  strength  in  grow- 
ing to  complete  and  perfect 
fruition. 

When  coupled  with  the  aera- 
tion possible  with  KemiKulture, 
this  perfect  balance  in  diet  is  one 
of  the  most  important  aspects  of 
gravel  culture.  It  accounts  for  the 
almost  phenomenal  results  a- 
chieved  by  Mr.  Allen  and  of  his 
confidence  that  still  further  in- 
creases in  productivity  are  pos- 
sible. 

He  points  out  that  in  modern 
homes  a  child  is  nourished 
scientifically.  It  is  fed  by  formu- 
la and  therefore  grows  to  man- 
hood better  fitted  to  withstand 
the  rigours  of  this  life.  It  there- 
fore follows  that  if  one  treats  a 
plant  in  exactly  the  same  way, 
similar  results  must  be  produced. 
It  is  in  this  manner  that  he  ac- 
counts for  the  virility  and  the 
vigor  of  his  plants,  the  firmness 
of  the  fruit  or  the  bloom,  their 
longevity  after  plucking  or  cut- 
ting, their  freshness,  their  high- 
er mineral  content  and  their 
better  flavor.  That  plants  will  re- 
spond favorably  to  such  treat- 
ment has  been  amply  demonstrat- 
ed by  many  specimens  he  has 
grown.  Tomatoes,  for  instance, 
have  reached  a  height  of  13  feet 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


6  inches,  have  borne  as  many  as 
16  tomatoes  per  truss  and  ten 
trusses  per  plant.  The  tomatoes 
were  of  almost  uniform  shape, 
rich  color  and  exquisite  taste. 

Mr.  Allen  has  grown  an  aura- 
tum  lily  from  bulb  to  full  flower 
in  93  days,  a  feat  never 
approached  with  soil  culture. 
And  furthermore  one  of  the 
blooms  on  that  lily  measured  18 
inches  from  petal  tip  to  petal  tip 
and  was  pronounced  an  almost 
perfect  specimen  by  competent 
horticulturalists.  He  waits  until 
the  bulb  has  expanded  to  full 
size  before  placing  it,  surrounded 
by  gravel,  in  the  pot,  which  is 
then  laid  in  the  gravel  tank.  In 
this  manner  he  has  grown  a  16- 
and-a-half  inch  bulb  in  a  10  inch 
pot.  To  specialists  in  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  beautiful  auratum 
lily  this  is  news  worthy  of  at- 
tention; for  an  18  inch  bloom  is 
indeed  a  magnificient  specimen. 

In  the  growing  of  carnations  the 
KemiKulture  method  produced 
further  amazing  results.  Mr. 
Allen  had  plucked  one  pale  pink 
bloom  on  October  23,  1944,  and 
when  viewed  by  the  writer  on 
December  19,  1944,  it  was  still  in 
fair  shape,  although  slightly  wilt- 
ed and  shrivelled  at  the  petal 
edges.  It  had  been  pushed  into 
damp  sand  in  the  greenhouse 
and  had  been  removed  on  num- 
erous occasions  for  inspection  by 


33 


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Mr  Allen  and  various  interested 
callers. 

A  florist  bemoans  his  fate  if  he 
is  called  upon  by  lack  of  demand 
to  keep  his  soil  grown  carnations 
under  perfect  refrigeration  for 
seven  days,  after  which  time  they 
are  hardly  fit  to  offer  for  sale. 
Mr.  Allen's  record  of  almost  two 
months  to  approach  an  almost 
similar  state,  and  in  a  green- 
house with  a  temperature  of  a- 
round  55   degrees  is  staggering. 

The  same  space  saving  is  in 
evidence  with  carnations  as  was 
noted  for  tomatoes.  His  plants 
are  about  5  inches  apart,  they 
were  obviously  virile,  healthy 
and  practically  bursting  with  life. 
The  buds  were  full  and  plump 
and  the  open  blooms  were  of 
perfect  formation. 

The  longevity  of  cut  carnations 
when  gravel-grown  and  formula- 
fed  is  passed  off  lightly  by  Mr. 
Allen  with  the  same  reasoning 
that  was  stated  earlier — a  healthy 
plant  naturally  produces  a  heal- 
thy flower  which  will  last  longer 
against  the  rigours  of  display. 

When  cuttings  are  started  in 
his  beds  the  deathrate  approach- 
es that  which  the  North  Ameri- 
can interest  rate  is  nearing — 
zero — when  compared  with  soil- 
started  cuttings.  A  friend's  con- 
tribution of  30  carnation  cuttings 
was  recently  started  by  Mr. 
Allen  at  the  same  time  as  a  simi- 


lar number  were  started  in  soil 
by  his  friend.  Of  the  latter  there 
are  now  only  3  plants  alive 
whereas  Mr.  Allen  has  27  of  his 
30  thriving  and  making  new 
growth. 

Considered  commercially,  gra- 
vel-grown carnations  are  much 
cheaper  to  raise  than  soil  grown 
blooms.  Mr.  Allen  has  kept  strict 
records  of  his  costs,  and  can 
raise  them  in  gravel  at  21  cents 
a  dozen  while  the  cost  in  soil  is 
60  to  65  cents  a  dozen. 

A  number  of  tanks  have  been 
installed  throughout  British  Co- 
lumbia under  Mr.  Allen's  dir- 
ection, and  the  results  of  their 
production  are  worth  consider- 
ing. Potatoes  have  registered  a 
tonnage  of  almost  300  per  acre. 
Tomatoes  have  yielded  over  200 
tons  per  acre.  From  the  1943-44 
edition  of  the  Canada  Year  Book 
the  average  yield  per  acre  for 
Canada  in  potatoes  is  given  as 
86.0  cwt.  or  4.3  tons.  If  we  were 
to  grow  all  our  potatoes  Kemi- 
Kulturally  this  tonnage  in  Canad- 
ian soil  for  1943-44  would  repre- 
sent 1.43  percent  of  our  perulti- 
mate  yield! 

The  chemicals  and  minerals 
used  in  KemiKulture  are  numer- 
ous and  some  of  them  have  not 
before  been  used  hydroponically. 
They  include:  Chilean  nitrate; 
sodium  nitrate;  potassium  nitrate; 
phosphoric     acid;     triple     super- 


34 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


fifisHra  BUS  £&$ 


■ 


phosphate;  potassium  muriate; 
ammonium  sulphate;  monabasic 
pot.  phosphate;  calcium  nitrates; 
sulphur;  magnesium  sulphate; 
barium;  silicon;  and  molybdenum. 
The  minor  elements  although 
used  sparingly,  play  an  important 
part  in  healthful  plant  growth 
and  those  used  include  zinc,  cop- 
per, manganese,  borax,  and 
iron.  This  catalog  of  chemistry  is 
rounded  off  with  something  that 
every  North  American  is  too- 
well  aware  of — vitamin  Bl  and 
vitamin  C.  Both  of  these  are  used 
in  crystal  form,  as  pure  as  it  is 
possible  to  obtain  them. 

He  obtains  analyses  of  his  pro- 
ducts at  regular  intervals  both 
in  Vancouver  and  from  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  in  Ot- 
tawa. The  Ottawa  reports  on 
tomatoes  have  proved  them  to  be 
far  superior  in  quality  to  any 
other  samples  tested  by  them, 
with  at  least  a  30  percent  aver- 
age higher  mineral  content.  In 
some  minerals  this  figure  rises 
to  a  high  point  of  2-and-a-half 
times  as  much  as  in  Ontario 
tomatoes. 

Mr.  Allen  has  grown  most 
vegetables,  and  in  each  case  with 
equal  success,  and  he  has  com- 
mercialized in  tomatoes  and  car- 
nations. He  has  developed  a 
'shockproof  treatment  for  plants 
involving  a  chemical  dose  given 
just  prior  to  lifting  and  removal, 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


whereby  the  plants  are  able  to 
continue  their  growth  without  in- 
terruption or  setback.  He  has 
lifted  root  vegetables  from  his 
gravel,  clean  and  free  of  all 
sand  or  gravel,  and  has  replaced 
them  in  their  respective  spots 
without  so  much  as  a  temporary 
wilt  in  their  leaves.  Several 
years  ago  he  was  asked  to  super- 
intend the  moving  of  a  16  foot 
yew  tree  in  British  Columbia, 
when  it  was  felt  too  dan- 
gerous to  move  it  without  its 
dying.  He  avers  that  today  it  is 
the  prize  specimen  in  that  dis- 
trict, and  that  it  continued  to 
grow  as  though  it  had  never 
been  moved. 

After  growing  two  or  three 
crops  in  gravel,  the  producer 
may  wish  to  reassure  himself  that 
there  is  no  possibility  of  disease 
lurking  among  the  tanks,  and  the 
following  treatment  will  prevent 
any  disease  from  either  accumu- 
lating or  commencing.  Drain  off 
all  solution  left,  and  discard  it. 
Run  a  1  percent  solution  of  sul- 
phuric acid  through  the  tanks  for 
2  or  3  hours,  and  finally  flush 
with  clear  water  for  4  or  5  hours. 
This  treatment  will  kill  any  bac- 
teria harmful  to  the  next  crop 
and  the  clear  water  flushing  will 
remove  all  traces  of  sulphuric 
acid. 

Aquaculture  therefore  offers 
numerous  advantages     over     soil 


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culture — it  is  more  prolific  of 
growth  and  crop;  it  is  clean;  it 
requires  less  labor;  it  produces 
better  and  healthier  plants,  flow- 
ers and  fruit;  it  enables  a  strict 
check  to  be  maintained  at  all 
times  on  the  progress  of  the  crop 
and  thus  ensures  a  more  uniform 
growth;  it  is  a  deterrent  to  the 
growth  of  air-borne  plant  pests 
and  diseases  and  prevents  the  at- 
tack of  soil-borne  bugs  or  weeds. 

And  yet  the  process,  which 
would  raise  the  quality  of  the 
food  we  eat,  is  not  being  used  to 
supply  even  1  percent  of  our 
produce.  The  question  naturally 
arises:  'Why  is  not  greater  use 
being  made  of  our  ability  to  grow 
our  food  technologically?' 

Technocracy  has  made  pain- 
fully clear  to  millions  of  North 
Americans  during  the  past  de- 
cade that  under  our  out-moded 
social  system  of  business  oper- 
ation, the  installation  of  further 
technology  would  be  bad  for 
business.  And  what  would  be 
'bad'  for  business  has  been,  and 
is,  consistently  sold  to  the  sucker 
public  as  being  bad  for  them  too. 
You  will  remember  the  huge  dis- 
play advertisements  inserted  by 
Big  Business  just  before  World 
War  H  proclaiming  pontifically 
that:  'What  is  good  for  business 
is  good  for  you!'  and  what  is  not 
good  for  business,  they  hope  you 
will   understand,   is   likewise  not 


very  good  for  you! 

(If  you  failed  to  obtain  a  copy 
of  Technocracy  Digest  for  Nov- 
ember 1944,  issue  No.  77,  and  did 
not  read  the  article  'How  Cartels 
Sabotage  Technology'  you  missed 
a  feast.  Get  a  copy,  read  it  and 
weep,  for  verily  are  we  a  nation 
of  suckers!) 

If  a  large  number  of  aquacul- 
ture  tanks  were  to  be  installed, 
where  would  the  greenhouse 
business  of  today  be?  What  would 
happen  to  the  dirt  farmer  ener- 
getically but  antiquatedly  grow- 
ing potatoes  at  the  devastating 
rate  of  4.3  tons  per  acre?  Where 
would  the  growers  of  carnations 
be  endeavouring  to  sell  with  a 
price  handicap  of  40  cents  a  doz- 
en? Yes,  you  have  the  answers; 
it  is  the  same  old  story! 

The  resulting  abundance  would 
destroy  prices  even  more  dis- 
astrously than  did  the  'dirty 
thirties'  when  things  were  pretty 
grim  for  half  of  the  population  of 
North  America.  Visualize  if  you 
can  what  economic  chaos  would 
result  were  our  farm  products  to 
drop  their  cost  by  two  thirds  and 
swamp  the  market  with  a  pleth- 
ora of  foodstuffs  the  like  of 
which  we  have  never  before 
faced,  except  perhaps  in  wheat; 
prices  which  would  make  25-cent 
wheat  look  expensive;  prices 
which  would  spell  ruin  for  every 
farmer,  wholesaler,  and     retailer 


36 


TECHNOCRACY  DICEST 


■  ■ 


^B         B 

wBKKKSr. 


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on  the  Continent. 

We  must  realize  that  our  Price 
System  method  of  production  and 
distribution  has  grown  out  of 
seventy  centuries  of  human  toil 
and  hand  tools,  and  that  it  is 
geared  to  distribute  a  scarcity; 
that  it  fails  miserably  to  distri- 
bute an  abundance.  Abundance 
of  any  commodity  is  a  situation 
with  which  the  Price  System 
has  never  before  been  faced  in 
all  its  seven  thousand  years  and 
has  never  been  asked  to  distri- 
bute, and  yet  we  apparently 
grasp  that  archaic  social  system 
as  though  we  were  drowning 
men  grasping  at  a  straw. 

There  are  today  over  one-third 
of  the  families  of  North  America 
who  do  not  obtain  sufficient  fresh 
vegetables  to  maintain  healthful 
living,  and  yet  we  are  somehow 
prompted  to  defend  with  gusto 
that  social  system  rather  than  at- 
tempt to  understand  a  technolog- 
cal  operation  wherein  all  North 
Americans  would  have  access  to 
all  North  America's  technological 
attainments  and  thereby  have  an 
assured  and  adequate  standard 
of  living. 

Technocrats  throughout  North 
America    will    expect    KemiKul- 


ture  as  conducted  and  perfected 
today  by  Mr.  G.  K.  Allen  to  re- 
main rather  hidden,  like  the  light 
beneath  the  bushel,  not  because 
of  his  reluctance  to  share  his 
findings  with  every  other  North 
American,  but  because  our  ar- 
chaic set  of  social  concepts  and 
controls  will  not  permit  its  more 
widespread  adoption. 

Technocrats  can  but  wish  him 
well  and  salute  him  for  his  re- 
search, knowing  that  until  the 
social  system  of  North  America 
be  changed  his  contribution  to- 
wards a  healthier  nation  cannot 
be  given  to  all  its  citizens.  That 
this  system  is  past  all  repair  is 
obvious  to  many  thousands  of 
North  American  citizens  who 
realize  that  it  must  soon  give  way 
to  the  thundering  giant  of  a 
technological  control  of  pro- 
duction and  distribution  for  the 
benefit  of  every  North  American. 

Technocracy  indicts  the  up- 
holders of  that  system  with 
knowingly  and  wilfully  sabotag- 
ing yet  another  means  towards  a 
fuller  life  of  health  and  security 
for  all  citizens  of  this  Continent. 
Their  infamy  will  shortly  ring 
throughout  the  land. 

— Horace  W.  Carpenter 


-fr  I  FORESEE  UNEMPLOYMENT  as  a  postwar  problem  and  ...  unless  we  can 
meet  the  unemployment  situation  we  can't  save  the  free  enterprise  system  of  the 
United  States.  —George  P.  Ellis,  C.P.A. 


FEBRUARY,  1945 


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The  Culture  of  Abundance 


The  culture  of  tomorrow  must  be  something  new,  and  its  general 
form  will  be  laid  down  by  the  pattern  of  technology  on  this  Con- 
tinent. Our  art,  our  philosophy,  our  literature,  must  be  a  reflection 
of  the  technology  and  the  abundance  of  the  New  America. 

(continued   from   last   month) 


Five 
r~y\  HEREFORE  in  spirit  and 
A  content  the  new  culture  will 
be  spacious  and  free.  Having  at 
last  lifted  itself  out  of  the  ten- 
sion of  economic  poverty,  it  will 
stand  above  the  old  battle  with 
brute  earth;  it  will  transcend  the 
crude  motivations  of  hunger  and 
money;  it  will  set  man's  mind 
free  for  the  true  destiny  of  spirit. 

In  an  age  of  poverty,  men  are 
necessarily  'practical';  in  the  tran- 
sitional era  when  production  is  a- 
bundant  and  distribution  is  poor, 
men  are — not  necessarily,  but 
morbidly — resolved  to  emphasize 
and  demand  the  'practical';  but  in 
a  true  age  of  abundance,  men 
will  be  practical  and  so  they  will 
not  have  to  insist  on  it.  Being 
actually  practical,  they  can  at  last 
be  poetic. 

For  what  is  the  essence  of  the 
poetic  mind? — That  it  seeks  in 
experience  not  a  means  to  a  fur- 
ther end,  but  realization!  Max 
Eastman  in  his  superb  book  on 
the  psychological  nature  of  poet- 


Reprinted  from  Technocracy,  A-13,  by 
kind   permission    of   CHQ. 


ry,  makes  this  forever  lucid:  the 
practical  mind  sees  a  road  as  an 
instrument  of  the  journey;  the 
poetic  mind  sees  the  road  itself 
and  the  experience  of  the  journey. 

Now  while  man  struggled  with 
economic  need,  or  with  the  win- 
ning of  the  abundance  which  he 
had  created  but  which  was  kept 
from  him,  naturally  he  would 
make  his  culture  utilitarian — the 
means  to  an  end.  He  would  not 
enlist  his  energies  in  the  true  life 
of  art:  the  realization  of  life. 
Artists  would  occur  as  freaks  and 
accidents;  they  would  be  ignored 
as  non-functional,  or  opposed  as 
nuisances  and  threats  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  The  way 
of  all  flesh  would  so  engross  the 
interest  of  man  that  there  would 
be  little  interest  or  energy  for  the 
way  of  all  spirit. 

Man  would  naturally  develop 
a  culture  that  would  move  in  the 
direction  of  prose;  his  prose 
would  move  naturally  in  the  di- 
rection of  naturalism  and  realism; 
his  naturalism  would  move  natur- 
ally in  the  direction  of  satire  and 
debunking,  or  journalism,  or  sav- 
age expression  of    the    worst,  or 


38 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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sociological  amelioration,  or  pro- 
paganda (whether  for  the  status 
quo  or  the  flux  quo).  Literature 
would  be  largely  pathological  or 
largely  medicinal — either  an  ex- 
pression of  the  headache  of  the 
day-after  catastrophe,  or  medici- 
nal propaganda  to  remove  the 
headache.  There  .would  be  little 
pure  poetry,  few  poets,  and  no 
'great  audiences'  which  Whitman 
rightly  said  are  the  condition  of 
great  poets.  Poets  would  be 
lonely  adventurers  forever  in 
peril  when  they  were  not  in  ob- 
scurity. Men  would  ignore  or 
hate  the  thing  that  poets  in  the 
widest  sense  come  to  create:  Th^ 
celebration  of  Life  itself. 

But  the  age  of  abundance,  be- 
ing itself  practical,  will  transcend 
the  'practical'.  It  will,  having  set 
us  free  from  the  horrible  minor 
problem  of  making  a  living,  put 
us  at  last  face  to  face  with  the 
spiritual  and  major  need  of  mak- 
ing a  life.  Hunger  and  money,  the 
petty  dynamics  of  time,  will  cease 
to  motivate:  we  shall  have  to 
find  the  dynamic  of  eternity 
And  that  will  give  us  new  inter- 
est in  artists  like  Shakespeare 
and  Blake  and  Whitman  and  Vil- 
lon and  Thoreau  and  Melville 
and  Rembrandt  and  Van  Gogh 
and  Beethoven.  It  will  give  us 
an  interest  in  going  beyond  them 
into  a  new  dimension  of  the 
spirit.     It  will  be  the  intense  dis- 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


covery  of  the  intense  adventures 
of  life. 

Thus  the  culture  of  abundance 
will  mean  the  return  of  poetry. 
(Not  of  verse  alone.  I  use  the 
word  poetry  in  the  largest  sense, 
to  include  the  truth  of  the  widest 
art — music,  painting,  sculpture, 
creative  prose.  Jean  Christophe 
or  The  Forty  Days  of  Musa  Dagh, 
Thoreau's  Journals,  Van  Gogh's 
Sun-flowers:  these  are  all  poetry 
in  the  width  of  verity). 

In  an  integral  economy,  we 
shall  be  able  to  transfer  much 
more  spiritual  enthusiasm  to  art. 
We  shall  have  time — and  need — 
to  celebrate  life  in  itself.  We 
shall — and  here  Spengler's  idea 
of  'winter'  fails  to  apply  to  the 
culture  of  technology — break  the 
patterns  of  modern  megalopolitan 
and  cerebral  man  under  an  up- 
surge of  love,  or  joy,  of  life.  We 
shall  love  life  again,  and  enter 
upon  the  renaissance  of  wonder. 

Life  again  will  be,  in  the  noble 
sense,  p'ay.  For  the  culture  of 
abundance  can  be  at  last  spon- 
taneous— 'a  self-rolling  wheel.' 
All  the  old  elemental  interests — 
nature,  love,  curiosity,  the  danc- 
ing of  the  mind — will  not  end, 
but  rather  begin  on  a  new  plane 
and  with  a  new  mood.  They  will 
all  be  reborn;  they  will  all  be  as 
new  as  earth  to  a  man  suddenly 
born  at  the  age  of  thirty;  they  will 
all   demand  restatement,   re-cele- 


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bration,  in  terms  of  higher  scope 
and  voltage.  They  will  no  longer 
be  merely  candles  dimly  and  fit- 
fully and  frailly  beautiful,  but 
electricity,  lighting  man's  world 
with  white  miracle. 

We  shall  not,  for  example, 
scorn  Nature:  we  shall  at  last  be 
able  to  love  Nature  now  that  she 
is  not  our  taskmaster  but  our 
comrade,  not  our  step-mother  but 
our  bride.  The  man  with  the 
hoe  could  not  really  love  Corot's 
dream-trees;  nor  Keats  the  bee- 
chen  green  and  shadows  number- 
less in  all  their  Eden-beauty 
while  the  hungry  generations 
trod  him  down.  The  leaves  of 
grass,  the  pines  around  a  new 
Walden,  the  Andes  or  the  hills 
north  of  Boston,  the  Atlantic  arm 
of  Cape  Cod  where  the  breakers 
dig  holes  big  enough  to  bury  a 
horse,  the  pussywillows  like  little 
snowy  mice  or  the  waterlilies 
drifting  like  suns  in  cups  of  snow 
.  .  .  these  will  be  beautiful  indeed 
to  the  men  of  the  new  age — who 
at  last  will  have  time  to  look  at 
them.  Transcending  the  drag  of 
Nature,  we  shall  be  able  finally 
to  see  the  dream  of  Nature. 

Love,  too,  must  be  celebrated 
in  the  culture  of  abundance.  The 
foolish  Russians  dismiss  love  as  a 
'bourgeois  sentimentality,'  a  dis- 
missal which  is  certainly  a  pro- 
letarian stupidity.  But  love  will 
be  reborn  as  a  dynamic,  a  motiva- 


tion, a  victory;  in  life,  it  will  be- 
come richly  possible — demanding 
in  life  and  in  art  a  new  finesse, 
a  new  scope,  a  new  depth.  Love 
in  the  life  of  abundance  will  be 
one  of  the  fine  arts.  And  cer- 
tainly culture,  celebrating  and 
realizing  love,  will  make  it  a 
thing  of  spiritual  play,  of  exuber- 
ant ecstasy  and  noble  anguish. 
Love — of  course  with  new  tech- 
nique and  variety — will  again  be- 
come all  that  it  was  to  Shake- 
speare: the  central  drama  of  per- 
sonal life.  Lovers'  tongues  will 
sound  even  sweeter  by  night  than 
they  did  in  old  Verona  where 
Juliet's  bounty  was  as  boundless 
as  the  sea.  We  shall  know,  as 
Keats  inadequately  and  tragical- 
ly longed  to  know,  the  'white, 
million  pleasured  breast'  of  love. 
The  culture  of  abundance  will  not 
say  but  realize  the  truth:  Love  is 
a  deed. 

Everywhere  in  the  culture  of 
abundance  we  shall  develop  what 
John  Cowper  Powys  call  the  'ich- 
tyosaurus-ego',  and  delight  as  he 
does  in  the  rich  sensuous  experi- 
ences of  living.  We  shall  do  what 
Thoreau  did  with  the  leisure  he 
won  by  doing  without  (only  we 
shall  win  it  by  doing  with) — make 
life  an  adventure  and  a  poem, 
full  of  the  wine  as  well  as  the 
bread  of  the  sacrament.  We  shall 
loaf  in  the  sun  like  Whitman;  de- 
light  in   existence    like    Huckle- 


40 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


•-.•■■••'** 

nj    SBBIiwI^HRl 

dQMA  ' 

.&£  ^     ■   fill 
■■Kfll 

•  > 

^9! 

*£>    ws    wfflfM 

■  I 


vtBSKriri 


berry  Finn  drinking  in  sun  or 
starlight  through  his  naked  hide; 
love  the  'innumerable  stains  and 
splendid  dyes'  as  Keats  did.  We 
shall  expand  into  exuberance  and 
play;  we  shall  love  color,  imag- 
ery, humor,  'Dance,  and  Proven- 
cal song,  and  sunburnt  mirth.' 
We  shall  have  plenty  of  the  daily 
bread:  therefore  we  shall  seek  the 
power  and  the  glory.  Integral 
like  the  lilies  in  our  economy,  we 
shall  clothe  our  lives  like  Solo- 
mon exuberant  in  the  rainbow. 

In  the  culture  of  abundance, 
philosophy  too  will  be  at  last  pos- 
sible. Man's  mind  will  be  free 
from  the  petty  enigmas  and  the 
utilitarian  tactics  of  time;  it  can 
confront  eternity.  The  three  di- 
mensions will  be  our  servants; 
we  can  explore  the  fourth  dimen- 
sion. And  we  shall  have  a  new 
technique  of  mind,  too:  we  shall 
give  the  realm  of  means  and  ends 
to  the  technicians;  we  shall  take 
the  realm  of  direct  experience  of 
living  reality  for  the  new  artist- 
philosophers.  Our  energy  will  be 
free  for  intense  direct  realization. 
We  shall,  like  the  artist,  the  mys- 
tic, the  lover,  synthesize  intellect 
and  being.  We  shall  enter  life 
directly;  we  shall  not  'think 
about',  but  know.  Man's  mind 
hungering  (as  Nietzsche  phrased 
it)  like  the  Hon  for  his  prey,  will 
strike  that  elusive  game  down 
and  drink  the  hot  blood  of  truth. 


And  finally,  the  essential  and 
whole  spirit  of  the  age  of  abund- 
ance will  make  culture  fluid  and 
free.  Functional  and  experiment- 
al in  style,  masterful  in  mood, 
playful  and  free  in  spirit,  revital- 
izing old  reality  with  a  new 
height  of  being,  the  culture  of 
abundance  will  break  all  patterns 
of  mechanization.  The  machine, 
then  man's  servant,  will  no  longer 
be  man's  god.  We  shall  see  ma- 
chines for  what  they  are — an  in- 
strument and  a  means;  we  shall 
not  any  more  regard  them  as  an 
end  or  a  creator.  Mechanism 
will  be  less  persuasive  as  a  creed 
in  philosophy  and  art.  Mechani- 
zation will  be  less  possible,  for 
man's  vitality,  man's  dynamic  of 
joy,  will  be  greater  than  ever  be- 
fore, and  will  flood  all  static  and 
sterile  patterns  with  the  crimson 
energy  of  the  spontaneous  blood. 

The  age  of  poverty  was  like  a 
tree  planted  in  sandy  soil  that 
must  use  all  its  energy  or  most  of 
its  energy  simply  to  grow  at  ?11. 
The  age  of  abundance  will  be 
like  a  tree  planted  in  rich  soil, 
that  can  grow  without  strain  and 
can  bourgeon  freely  into  beauty 
of  flower  and  splendor  of  fruit. 

Thus  the  culture  of  abundance 
will  be  the  culture  of  a  fourth 
dimension. 

Having  mastered  the  riddle  of 
how  to  make  a  living,  man  will 
face  the  adventure  of  making  a 


■  ■  '  ■  ■ 


Uft 


■rmi 


HRBS 


■ 


iBH 


FEBRUARY,  1945 


41 


I 


kttm    -'.V 


-.»,'  ■ 


...-■••    r 

T.*?-i>rf  tKi.  I 


•*■>  • 


■  ■ 


■S&fl  Kb 

Her*"' 


life.  He  will  rise  from  the  three 
dimensions  of  practicality  and 
time,  into  a  fourth  dimension  of 
creative  being.  He  will  master 
the  way  of  all  flesh;  he  will  be 
ready  at  last  for  the  way  of  all 
spirit. 

Long  ago  the  first  Columbus 
discovered  our  physical  America. 
Now  the  work  of  that  Columbus 
nears  final  completion — we  are 
creating  and  building  the  physi- 
cal America  whose  outline  and 
potentiality  he  discovered.  And 
when  the  great  work  is,  by  Tech- 


nocracy, at  last  finished,  then  we 
shall  be  ready — as  already  we 
are  impatient — for  the  Second 
Columbus,  the  Columbus  who 
shall  create  into  discovery  the 
America  of  the  mind. 

Shall  we  not,  with  Whitman, 
bid  our  daring  souls  to  shake  out 
more  canvas,  and  to  sail  on,  till 
we  see  the  surf  flashing  white 
round  the  San  Salvador  of  the 
new  culture,  and  touch,  our- 
selves, the  Second  America? 

— E.  Merrill  Root 


■fc  A  MAN  about  46  years  of  age,  giving  the  name  of  Joshua  Coppersmith,  has  been 
arrested  in  New  York  for  attempting  to  extort  funds  from  ignorant  and  superstitious 
people  by  exhibiting  a  device  which  he  says  will  convey  the  human  voice  any  distance 
over  metallic  wires,  so  that  it  will  be  heard  by  the  listener  at  the  other  end.  He  calls 
the  instrument  a  "telephone,'  which  is  obviously  intended  to  imitate  the  word  'tele- 
graph' and  win  the  confidence  of  those  who  know  the  success  of  the  latter  instrument 
without  understanding  the  principles  on  which  it  is  based.  Well-informed  people 
know  that  it  is  impossible  to  transmit  the  human  voice  over  wires  as  may  be  done 
with  dots  and  dashes  and  signals  of  the  Morse  code,  and  that,  were  it  possible  to  do 
so,  the  thing  would  be  of  no  practical  value.  The  authorities  who  apprehended  this 
criminal  are  to  be  congratulated,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  his  punishment  will  be 
prompt  and  fitting,  that  it  may  serve  as  an  example  to  other  conscienceless  schemers 
who  enrich  themselves  at  the  expense  of  their  fellow  creatures. 

— Clipped  from  a  Maryland  newspaper,  published  in  1863. 

*  THIS  CURRENT  MADNESS  in  Manhatten  is  different  from  any  previous  boom 
because  no  one  believes  in  it.  The  boom  of  1929  was  believable.  Mr.  Hoover  had  pro- 
mised it  would  be  permanent.  But  the  American  people  know  that  this  one  won't  last 
and  the  universal  emotion  here  today  is  fear  of  the  future.  In  their  blind  way,  and 
having  a  good  time  while  they  can,  the  American  people  are  trying  to  find  out  where 
their  nation  is  going,  how  they  will  work  and  eat  in  normal  times,  and  despite  the 
political  promises  and  economists'  figures,  no  one  can  tell  them.  — Bruce  Hutchison 

•fc  THE  WORLD  OF  THE  1950's  will  not  be  able  to  supply  employment  for  every- 
body then  wanting  work  at  the  kind  of  pick-and-shovel  jobs  there  would  have  been 
before  1914.  Less  and  less  of  the  work  of  the  world  is  going  to  be  done  by  hand.  More 
and  more  of  the  work  of  the  world  is  going  to  be  done  by  machine.  Power  to  drive 
machinery — power  to  split  the  atom — power  to  produce  the  explosive  fuels  which  will 
propel  the  rocket  lanes  across  the  oceans  in  five  hours — power  will  be  the  key  to 
domestic  economy,  and  to  international  relationships.  Power  for  good,  or  evil? 

— Elmore  Philpott 


42 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


The  Concept  of  Legalities 


Governance  of  the  next  most  probable  society  on  this  Continent  can- 
not be  installed  in  conformity  with  the  preconceived  theories  of 
constitutionalities.  The  governance  of  the  North  America  of  to- 
morrow will  be  dictated  by  the  physical  factors  which  exist. 


B 


ECAUSE  Technocracy  makes 
pretentions     to     political 


no 


democracy  it  is  immediately 
labelled  'dictatorship' — and  to 
give  the  technological  touch  of 
North  America  the  intellectual 
liberals  of  this  Continent  have 
seized  upon  the  quaint  phrase  of 
'dictatorship  of  the  engineer.' 
The  phrase  has  the  quality  .that 
is  loved  by  the  opulent  press  of 
the  Continent,  for  every  news- 
paper can  display  jubilantly,  car- 
toons of  ruthless  automatons, 
dictatorial  engineers  leering  vil- 
lainously from  their  control  pan- 
els, watching  the  peoples  perish 
beneath  the  wheels  of  a  social 
Frankenstein. 

The  theory  of  the  critics  who 
maintain  that  Technocracy  pro- 
poses dictatorship,  is  that  the  pre- 
vention of  dictatorship  can  be 
realized  only  through  a  statement 
of  legalities  in  the  form  of  a  con- 
stitution. The  theory  demon- 
strates only  too  well  that  the 
aforementioned  critics  are  guided 
in  their  analysis  by  the  concepts 
of  European  political  philosophy. 

Although  the  definition  of  'dic- 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


tatorship'  is  vague,  the  scholars 
of  political  affairs  undoubtedly 
are  referring  to  such  forms  of 
dictatorship  as  are  at  present  in 
force  in  the  fascist  nations  of 
Europe.  The  installation  of  fas- 
cist dictatorship  as  a  mode  of  con- 
trol on  this  Continent  is  impos- 
sible because  of  the  physical  set- 
up of  North  America.  There 
must  needs  arise  on  this  Contin- 
ent a  new  technic  of  social  ad- 
ministration, a  governance  that 
is  endemic  to  this  Continent 
and  capable  of  maintaining  the 
efficient  operation  of  a  high-en- 
ergy  social   mechanism. 

The  political  philosophies  of 
democracy,  fascism,  communism, 
socialism,  monarchy,  plutocracy, 
and  aristocracy  are  endemic  to 
civilizations  of  scarcity  conditions 
and  low-energy  operation.  The 
basic  motif  of  political  govern- 
ance is  to  maintain  the  values  of 
the  existing  economy  and  stabili- 
ty of  the  status  quo.  The  prime 
procedure  of  political  governance 
is  the  maintenance  of  the  armed 
forces  of  defence  and  offence,  and 
the  maintenance  of  a  semblance 


43 


Mm 

■      •  I 


■r 


«•>-  •  ■*.« 


mm 


■ 


■•;*♦ 

■  ■ 


8^5 


•  ■■■'■■-  H 

•'■■'/'■•'■ 

Ik   - 

mwgmlm 

9LMUH     HMmlKTjft. 


n«i 


SJr9aa 


H  Hi 

SKI     I%m  *» 


Jfrf2W 


ML 
3SS  /$*  I 


of  internal  order. 


tical  administration. 


There  naturally  accumulated 
through  the  course  of  the  ages, 
philosophies  of  political  adminis- 
tration and  social  control,  these 
philosophies  applying  strictly  to 
conditions  of  scarcity  and  low- 
energy  social  operation.  The  po- 
litical philosophies  of  Plato,  Aris- 
totle, down  through  More, 
Hobbes,  Rousseau,  Diderot,  Bo- 
lingbroke,  Macchiavelli  to  Marx, 
and  to  the  contemporary  political 
philosophies  of  Mussolini,  D'An- 
nunzio,  Pareto,  and  Hitler — in 
spite  of  their  superficial  differ- 
ences— are  all  alike  in  that  they 
apply  of  necessity  to  social  en- 
tities of  low  extraneous  energy 
consumption.  These  various  po- 
litical philosophies — in  spite  of 
their  pretentious  antitheses — are 
all  alike  in  that  they  are  basically 
statements  of  legalities.  They  are 
credos  of  individual  concepts 
which  the  authors  of  these  vari- 
ous theories  believed  to  be  the 
most  'moral  and  good'  for  the 
masses,  and  which,  if  agreed  to 
by  the  population,  would  lead  to 
some  vague  salvation  of  humani- 
ty. 

This  basis  of  all  political  philo- 
sophy— the  statement  of  legalities 
— involves  the  abidance  to  cer- 
tain rules  which  delegate  pre- 
rogatives of  action  to  the  popu- 
lation at  large,  and  power  to  the 
various  instruments  of  the  poli- 


The  political  philosophy  intro- 
duced into  America  was  that  of 
a  democracy,  based  on  the  theory 
of  governance  in  England  and  in- 
fluenced much  by  the  political 
theories  of  certain  French  philo- 
sophers, primarily  Montesquieu. 
The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  is  an  outstanding  example 
of  a  statement  of  legalities  and 
moralistic  concepts,  delegating 
certain  prerogatives  and  powers 
to  the  various  bodies  of  the 
federal  and  state  administrations, 
and  to  the  population  at  large. 
The  theory  was  that  the  state- 
ment of  legalities  was  an  infall- 
ible guarantee  to  the  prevention 
of  dictatorship  by  an  individual 
or  by  an  oligarchy  of  individuals. 
And  it  was  the  argumentation 
over  the  legalities  of  the  consti- 
tution that  led  to  the  futile  clash 
between  the  President  and  the 
supporters  of  the  Supreme  Court 
in  1938.  Both  sides  made  claim 
to  the  championship  of  democ- 
racy, and  the  political  stalwarts 
of  both  sides  interpreted  the 
statement  of  legalities  in  such  a 
way  as  to  prove  that  the  other 
side  was  the  proponent  of  dic- 
tatorship. 

The  British  North  America  Act 
(which  applies  to  Canada)  is,  in 
essence,  the  very  same  as  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

Technocracy    takes    its    stand 


44 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


nun 


■  ■ 


■ 


that  neither  democracy  nor  fas- 
cism, nor  any  other  theory  of 
governance  that  has  arisen  in 
Europe  or  Asia  is  feasible  as  a 
technic  of  control  in  North  Am- 
erica. Dictatorship  of  the  pro- 
letariat, or  of  the  vested  interests, 
is  subversive  to  the  technological 
progression  of  this  Continent,  and 
any  attempt  to  install  such  modes 
of  control  would  result  inevitably 
in  the  chaotic  disintegration  of 
society  on  this  Continent. 

The  accelerating  advance  of 
technology  on  this  Continent  is 
forcing  the  installation  of  a  new 
technic  of  control,  and  since  tech- 
nology is  the  pervading  factor  in 
North  America,  that  social  con- 
trol must  needs  be  a  technological 
administration.  The  governance 
of  the  next  most  probable  society 
on  this  Continent  cannot  be  in- 
stalled in  conformity  with  the 
preconceived  philosophies  or 
theories  of  intellectual  constitu- 
tionalities.  The  governance  of 
the  North  America  of  tomorrow 
will  be  dictated  by  the  physical 
factors  that  exist. 

The  difference  between  a  high- 
energy  civilization  and  a  low-en- 
ergy civilization  is  analogous  to 
the  differences  between  a  mech- 
anism with  a  low  rate  of  energy 
conversion  and  one  of  high-ener- 
gy conversion.  There  is  a  differ- 
ence of  scalar  quantity.  The 
practicability  of  individual  or  col- 


lective opinion  in  arriving  at  a 
decision  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the 
increase  of  the  scalar  quantity. 

To  illustrate  with  an  example 
frequently  used  by  Technocracy, 
if  we  wish  to  block  the  flow  of  a 
small  trickle  of  water  down  a  hill- 
side the  means  of  arriving  at  a 
decision  are  unlimited.  A  hund- 
red decisions  are  equivalent  in 
mechanical  practicability;  for  a 
brick,  a  stone,  or  a  clod  would 
serve  as  well  as  a  slab  of  con- 
crete. Further,  any  error  in  the 
decision  made  could  do  little 
harm  for  the  rate  of  flow  of  the 
water  would  be  of  a  low  order. 

If  we  retain  the  same  physical 
components  and  study  the  flow 
of  water  in  the  penstock  of  a 
large  hydro-electrical  project,  we 
see  a  different  situation.  There 
has  been  an  increase  in  the  scalar 
quantity  of  our  system,  and  the 
means  of  arriving  at  a  decision 
have  narrowed  down.  There  can 
be  no  decision  arrivation  through 
democratic  consensus  of  opinion. 
The  physical  factors  of  the  sys- 
tem dictate  the  decision,  and 
there  can  be  only  one  decision. 
An  incorrect  decision  would  do 
irreparable  harm,  most  probably 
resulting  in  the  physiological  dis- 
integration of  the  person  or  per- 
sons making  that  incorrect  deci- 
sion. 

The  decisions  in  the  operation 
of  a    high-energy    civilization,   a 


1  '&% f &3&  7 


FEBRUARY,  1915 


45 


nil  'd?si*  'Sf9K*5& 


■J-K  ■ 


Technate,  will  be  arrived  at 
through  research  into  the  physi- 
cal factors  of  the  situation  under 
consideration.  The  execution  of 
any  decision  would  be  the  respon- 
sibility of  the  Functional  Se- 
quence to  which  the  operation 
applied,  and  thus  the  decision 
would  be  carried  out  by  those 
competent  to  do  so. 

The  Technate  of  North  Ameri- 
ca will  operate  on  a  thermo-dy- 
namically  balanced  load,  that 
balanced  load  operation  being 
maintained,  primarily,  through 
the  mechanism  of  the  Energy 
Certificate.  No  matter  how  dic- 
tatorial a  person  or  group  of  per- 
sons felt,  they  could  have  no  ef- 
fect upon  the  physical  operation 
of  a  Technate,  for  their  conduct 
in  conformity  to  the  physical  op- 
eration of  the  Technate  would  be 
automatically  necessitated  re- 
gardless of  their  individual  per- 
sonalities. Any  attempt  to  make 
a  decision  contrary  to  the  smooth 
operation  of  the  mechanism 
would  be  an  abortive  attempt, 
for  technology's  justice  is  smooth 
and  swift.     No  man  who  has  fal- 


len from  a  thousand-foot  cliff  has 
ever  bribed  the  Laws  of  Gravity. 

Any  statement  of  legalities 
would  be  futile  in  attempting  to 
specify  the  operations  of  a  high- 
energy  civilization.  The  state- 
ment of  legalities  is  a  treaty,  and 
treaties  can  be  broken. 

The  specifications  of  the  next 
most  probable  state  of  society  on 
this  Continent  are  not  a  state- 
ment of  legalities.  The  next  most 
probable  state  of  society  on  this 
Continent,  the  Technate  of  North 
America,  is  arrived  at  through 
the  study  of,  and  research  into, 
the  technological  and  biological 
trends  of  this  Continental  Area. 
Those  trends  have  specified  that 
all  imported  political  concepts — 
whether  they  be  democracy,  fas- 
cism, or  communism — are  impos- 
sible as  technics  of  control  of  a 
high-energy  civilization.  Tech- 
nocracy states  that  these  alien 
concepts  are  cluttering  the  road 
to  the  New  America.  The  citi- 
zens of  North  America  will  have 
to  clear  that  road  if  they  are  to 
make  the  transition  to  the  New 
America.  — William  Janis 


~k  ACCORDING  to  Dr.  Ethel  M.  Cruickshank,  of  Cambridge  University,  the  hen  is 
a  highly  specialized  machine  for  conversion  of  raw  materials  into  human  foodstuffs. 
She  states  that  the  hen's  efficiency  in  this  respect  is  greater  than  that  of  any  other 
farm  animal  with  the  exception  of  the  dairy  cow. 

The  original  jungle  fowl  from  which  the  hen  has  descended  laid  only  20  to  26  eggt 
a  year,  but  by  selective  breeding  and  scientific  feeding  higher  producing  hens  have 
been  obtained,  laying  250  eggs  or  more  annually.  A  hen  laying  250  eggs  will  manu- 
facture and  pack  31  lbs.  of  a  finished  product,  though  she  herself  may  weigh  only  4 
lbs.  — Nutritional  Observatory  (H.  J.  Heinz  Company) 


46 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■I 


■ 


-*»■■  mUss 

re? 

•  I  ■  % 


h 


Hi 


The  Story  of  Alberta  Coal 


Only  about  9,000  men  are  now  engaged  in  Alberta's  coal  mining  in- 
dustry,  but  production  capacity  is  substantially  greater  than  it  was 
even  during  the  '20's  when  more  than  12,000  were  employed  in  the 
Province's  coalfields. 


M 


SWAMPED  with  more  orders 
than  it  will  be  able  to  fill, 
Alberta's  flourishing  coal  mining 
industry  is  now  worrying  about 
developing  new  markets  to  main- 
tain most  of  the  province's  two 
hundred  collieries  in  profitable 
operation  when  peace  returns 
and  the  tremendous  wartime  de- 
mands shrink  away. 

Marketing  has  always  been  the 
chief  problem  of  the  industry  in 
normal  times  and  it  promises  to 
be  an  even  greater  one  than  ever 
before  in  the  coming  peace  era, 
due  largely  to  the  long  strides 
made  in  increasing  production 
capacity  of  the  industry  and  to 
the  determination  of  Albertans 
to  see  that  their  coal  reserves  are 
developed. 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  expan- 
sion of  Canada's  war  effort  and 
the  growing  demands  for  coal, 
Alberta  collieries  have  progres- 
sively shattered  one  record  after 
another  in     boosting     production 


Reprinted  from  Western  Business  and 
Industry,  by  kind  permission  of  the 
Author. 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


capacity  and  the  province's  coal 
industry  could  now  mine  consid- 
erably more  than  12,000,000  tons 
of  coal  in  a  year — if  sufficient 
experienced  coal  miners  could  be 
found.  Some  officials  place  the 
capacity  at  15,000,000  tons  a  year. 

Never  before  has  the  industry 
been  developed  to  such  a  high 
capacity1,  but  not  even  in  this 
73rd  year  of  coal  mining  in  Al- 
berta can  officials  say  that  the 
province  produced  8,000,000  tons 
of  coal  in  any  one  year.  When 
the  industry  had  enough  miners 
to  fully  exploit  its  vast  coal  re- 
serves it  lacked  markets;  now  it 
has  unlimited  markets  but  seri- 
ously lacks  experienced  miners. 
After  the  war,  officials  fear,  it 
will  be  the  old  story  of  not  en- 
ough markets. 

In  only  four  years  has  the 
province  been  able  to  exceed  the 
7,000,000-ton  production  mark, 
despite  the  fact  that  its  accessible 
coal  reserves  even  today  are  es- 
timated at  61  billion  tons.  All 
reserves  of  coal  in  the  province 
are  estimated  at  approximately 
327  billion  tons. 


47 


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The  banner  years  for  the  in- 
dustry from  the  standpoint  of 
tonnage  figures  were:  1942 — 7,- 
754,279  tons;  1943—7,677,982  tons; 
1928—7,336,330  tons;  1929—7,- 
150,693  tons.  Each  of  those  an- 
nual outputs  had  a  value  of 
roughly  $23,000,000. 

From  the  financial  standpoint, 
however,  the  banner  years  were 
those  of  the  inflation  period  fol- 
lowing the  First  Great  War,  es- 
pecially 1920,  when  the  province's 
output  of  6,907,765  tons  of  coal 
had  a  value  of  $30,186,933.  The 
output  dropped  during  the  next 
three  years  but  the  annual  value 
still  ranged  between  $24,352,000 
and  $28,000,000. 

In  spite  of  the  great  pressure 
on  the  industry  this  year  officials 
are  not  certain  that  1944  produc- 
tion will  exceed  7,000,000  tons. 
At  the  end  of  August  production 
totalled  4,595,124  tons  and  into 
November  the  output  was  esti- 
mated at  approximately  6,000,000 
tons. 

The  bulk  of  the  coal  produced 
in  Alberta  comes  from  about  60 
mines,  the  remaining  140  being 
of  minor  importance.  Neverthe- 
less, every  colliery  in  the  pro- 
vince has  heavy  backlogs,  such 
heavy  backlogs  that  hundreds  of 
orders  may  not  be  filled  in  time 
to  meet  delivery  dates  and  ex- 
pectations are  that  wholesale  can- 
cellations of  orders  will  follow  as 


the  winter  advances  into  its  latter 
half. 

The  greatest  handicap  in  the 
industry  throughout  this  year  has 
been  a  continuing  shortage  of  ex- 
perienced miners.  In  some  fields 
collieries  have  no  more  than  half 
a  full  crew.  Every  mine  in  oper- 
ation is  in  need  of  more  workers, 
a  recent  survey  revealing  that 
colliery  operators  have  standing 
orders  for  1,650  experienced 
miners  and  820  other  workers. 

Only  about  9,000  men  are  now 
engaged  in  Alberta's  coal  mining 
industry  but  production  capacity 
is  substantially  greater  than  it 
was  even  during  the  '20's  when 
more  than  12,000  were  employed 
in  the  province's  coal  fields.  Two 
factors  have  contributed  to  the 
larger  capacity:  Firstly,  the  great- 
er mechanization  and  improved 
methods  of  mining;  and  secondly, 
the  development  of  important 
strip  mines,  where  coal  is  easily 
and  quickly  produced  by  the  use 
of  bull-dozers  and  power  shovels. 

The  story  of  Alberta's  coal 
mining  industry  is  a  story  about 
Canada's  richest  coal  province. 
It  is  also  the  story  of  an  endless 
struggle  to  find,  develop  and  re- 
tain markets.  Brightening  and 
marring  that  story  alternately  are 
eras  of  booming  expansion  and 
sharp  curtailments,  high  earnings 
with  wild  spending  and  then 
poverty,   continuous  employment 


48 


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and  then  often  less  than  80  days 
of  work  in  a  whole  year,  perfect 
harmony    and    general    strikes. 

The  history  of  the  industry 
starts  on  a  hot  summer  day  in 
1872  when  Nicholas  Sheran,  an 
adventurous  and  industrious  gold 
prospector,  arrived  in  the  North 
West  Territories  from  Fort  Ben- 
ton, Montana,  to  open  up  the 
first  coal  mine  in  what  later  be- 
came the  province  of  Alberta. 
For  some  years  before  Indians 
had  been  burning  'black  dia- 
monds' in  this  region  and  their 
tales  of  rich  deposits  had  spread 
into  the  border  state. 

Indians  met  Sheran  and  his  ox- 
team  and  took  him  to  look  at 
thick  seams  of  coal  jutting  out 
from  the  banks  of  the  Oldman 
River.  They  helped  him  break 
away  huge  chunks  of  coal  and  the 
first  mine  was  started,  directly 
across  the  river  from  the  site 
where  the  last  great  Indian  battle 
in  the  history  of  the  North  West 
was  fought  just  two  years  earlier 
— the  Battle  of  Lethbridge. 

Recognizing  Sheran's  pioneer- 
ing work,  the  Historic  Sites  and 
Monuments  Board  of  Canada  in 
1928  erected  a  monument  in 
Lethbridge's  civic  gardens.  The 
words  on  the  plaque  tell  the 
story: 

'First   Coal   Mine   in   Alberta.' 

'In  1872,  on  the  western  bank 

of  the  Oldman  River  at  the  pre- 

FEBRUARY,  1945 


sent  site  of  the  Federal  Mine, 
Nicholas  Sheran  opened  the  first 
coal  mine  in  Alberta.  He  broke 
his  own  trails,  found  his  own 
markets,  and  hauled  coal  by  ox- 
team  200  miles  to  Fort  Benton, 
Montana,  and  other  distant 
points.  Thus  was  founded  a  vital 
industry  that  has  contributed 
greatly  to  the  development  and 
welfare  of  western  Canada.' 

From  that  small  beginning  has 
developed  one  of  Alberta's  major 
industries,  an  industry  which  has 
now  produced  over  200,000,000 
tons  of  coal  and  created  more 
than  $600,000,000  of  new  wealth. 

It  was  not  until  1883,  however, 
that  coal  mining  was  launched  on 
a  commercial  scale  in  Alberta. 
That  year  workers  started  to  dig 
into  the  coal-lined  banks  of  the 
South  Saskatchewan  River  at 
Medicine  Hat.  The  following 
year  the  famous  Gait  family  op- 
ened up  the  present  Lethbridge 
field  and  named  the  mining  camp 
Coalbanks.  The  name  was 
changed  to  Lethbridge  in  1885. 

Development  of  new  fields  fol- 
lowed quickly.  Operations  were 
started  in  the  Canmore  field  in 
1888,  in  the  Edmonton  field  in 
1891,  in  the  Crow's  Nest  Pass  in 
1900.  More  and  more  fields  were 
brought  into  production  and  to- 
day the  province  has  dozens  of 
proven  coal  fields. 

The  Crow's    Nest    Pass,    Can- 


49 


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more,  Nordegg  and  Mountain 
Park  regions  are  the  principal 
producers  of  bituminous  coal. 
The  bulk  of  the  sub-bituminous 
coal  comes  from  Saunders  Creek, 
Pincher  Creek,  Coalspur,  Prairie 
Creek  and  Pekisko.  Chief  do- 
mestic coal  fields  in  production 
are  those  about  Lethbridge, 
Drumheller  and  Edmonton. 

Earliest  records  of  the  industry 
state  that  Alberta's  coal  produc- 
tion amounted  to  43,220  tons  in 
1886.  In  1906  the  1,000,000-ton 
mark  was  exceeded  and  produc- 
tion soared  to  2,894,469  tons  in 
1910.  More  records  were  broken 
as  production  intermittently 
climbed  and  then  dropped. 

While  the  trend  was  upward 
and  thousands  of  miners  enjoyed 
almost  steady  employment,  pros- 
perity was  evident  throughout 
coal  areas.  Then  orders  declined 
sharply,  mines  closed  and  des- 
perate cries  arose  for  markets. 
Several  times  special  commis- 
sions investigated  the  industry  in 


an  effort  to  bring  some  measure 
of  stability  to  it.  Even  now  an- 
other new  Royal  Commission 
appointed  to  inquire  into  the 
Canadian  coal  industry  is  pre- 
paring to  investigate  once  more 
the  situation  in  Alberta. 

The  Alberta  coal  mining  indus- 
try has  been  subsidized  by  gov- 
ernment grants  and  reduced  rail- 
way freight  rates,  but  year  in  and 
year  out  the  fact  remained  that 
Alberta's  immense  coal  reserves 
lay  too  far  away  from  industrial 
Ontario  and  Quebec  to  compete 
successfully  against  coal  imported 
cheaply  from  the  United  States 
and   Great  Britain. 

In  normal  times  the  life  of  the 
industry  rested  almost  entirely 
with  the  prairie  provinces,  and 
a  small  extent  with  British  Co- 
lumbia. Time  and  again  the  in- 
dustry tried  to  crash  the  eastern 
market,  but  generally  without 
success. 

— George  A.  Yackulic 


*  SOME  OF  ALBERTA'S  VAST  COAL  RESERVES,  estimated  at  1,072,627,400,000 
metric  tons,  or  enough  to  last  for  1,800  years  at  the  rate  of  15,000,000  tons  produced 
annually — lie  close  to  the  surface,  and  the  Western  Venture  mine,  five  and  a  half  miles 
north  of  Taber,  Alta.,  is  uncovering  15,000  tons  monthly  just  by  removing  the  surface 
soil  with  bulldozers  and  scrapers  and  scooping  up  the  coal  with  drag-line  shovels. 

In  these  days  of  wartime  shortages,  the  Taber  property,  by  strip-mining  methods 
takes  a  shortcut  to  production.  One  man  with  a  drag-line  shovel  in  the  pit  can  produce 
500  tons  in  his  eight-hour  shift,  the  equivalent  of  the  output  of  200  men  working  in 
deep-seam  coal  mines  who  can  produce  about  two  and  a  half  tons  in  an  eight-hour 
shift.  — Calcary  Albertan 


50 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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WHAT? 

Technocracy  is  science  in  the  social 
field.  Encyclopedia  Americana  says: 
'Whatever  the  future  of  Technocracy, 
one  must  fairly  say  that  it  is  the 
only  program  of  social  and  economic 
reconstruction  which  is  in  complete 
intellectual  and  technical  accord  with 
the  age  in  which  we  live.' 

WHEN? 

Technocracy  originated  in  the  winter 
of  1918-1919  when  Howard  Scott 
formed  a  group  of  scientists,  engin- 
eers, and  economists  that  became 
known  in  1920  as  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance— a  research  organization.  Some 
of  the  better  known  names  in  the 
Technical  Alliance  are  of  interest, 
such  as:  Frederick  L.  Ackerman,  ar- 
chitect; L.  K.  Comstock,  electrical 
engineer;  Stuart  Chase,  C.P.A.  (now 
well-known  writer);  Bassett  Jones, 
electrical  engineer;  Leland  Olds, 
statistician  (now  Federal  Power 
Commissioner);  Benton  Mackaye 
(now  in  the  Forestry  Department); 
Charles  P.  Steinmetz  and  Thorstein 
Veblen  (both  now  dead).  Howard 
Scott  was  Chief  Engineer.  In  1930 
the  group  was  first  known  as  Tech- 
nocracy. In  1933  it  was  incorporated 
under  the  laws  of  the  state  of  New 
York  as  a  non-profit,  non-political, 
non-sectarian  membership  organiza- 
tion. In  1934  Howard  Scott,  Direct- 
or-in-Chief,  made  his  first  Continent- 
al lecture  tour  which  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  present  Continental 
membership  organization.  Since  1934 
Technocracy  has  grown  steadily  with- 
out any  spectacular  spurts,  revivals, 
collapses,  or  rebirths.  This  is  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  press  has 
generally  'held  the  lid'  on  Technoc- 
racy, until  early  in  1942  when  it 
made  the  tremendous  'discovery'  that 
Technocracy  had  been  reborn  sudden- 
ly, full-fledged  with  all  its  members, 
headquarters,  etc.,   in   full   swing! 


WHY? 

Technocracy's  survey  of  the  econo- 
mic situation  in  North  America  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  de- 
velopment a  process  of  progressive 
social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instability 
reaches  the  limits  of  social  tolerance 
and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be 
installed  on  this  Continent  a  social 
mechanism  competent  to  meet  the 
needs  of  its  people.  Technocracy 
finds  further  that  the  day  when 
social  operations  on  this  Continent 
can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now 
necessary  that  there  be  applied  in 
the  social  field  the  quantitative 
methods  of  physical  science.  Tech- 
nocracy, therefore,  proposes  that  the 
North  American  Continent  be  operat- 
ed as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This 
control  would  operate  the  area  under 
a  balanced-load  system  of  production 
and  distribution,  whereunder  there 
would  be  distributed  purchasing 
power  commensurate  with  the  re- 
sources and  the  continuous  full-load 
operation  of  the  physical  equipment, 
with  the  guarantee  of  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living,  equality  of  income,  and 
economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of 
working  hours,  to  every  adult  in- 
habitant. 

HOW? 

At  this  stage  the  objectives  of  Tech- 
nocracy are  first,  the  education  of 
the  people  of  North  America  to  a 
realization  of  the  conditions  behind 
the  social  crisis,  and  second,  the  or- 
ganization of  all  those  willing  to  in- 
vestigate and  interest  themselves  in- 
to an  informed,  disciplined,  and  func- 
tionally capable  body  whose  know- 
ledge and  ability  can  be  called  upon 
to  prevent  chaos  in  North  America 
at  that  time,  now  imminent,  when 
the  Price  System  can  no  longer  be 
made  to  operate.     , 


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9 


Forty  Years  of  Technology's  March 


IN   the  interval  from   1900  to   1940   the  population   of  continental   United  States   in- 
creased from  about  76,000,000  to  132,000,000,  or  over  70  percent.  Yet  in  that  period 
the  number  of  farm  workers  decreased  more  than   10  percent.  The  greatly  increased 
production  by  fewer  workers  was  not  the  result  of  longer  hours  of  work  or  more  help 
by  women  and  children.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  due  to  the  introduction  of  science  and 
technology  into  agriculture. 

The  use  of  electric  energy  increased  four  fold  in  the  interval  of  only  23  years  be- 
tween the  treaty  of  Versailles  and  the  attack  on  Pearl  Harbor.  From  1900  to  1940  .  .  . 
the  number  of  telephones  increased  sixteen  fold,  and  the  number  of  homes  having 
electric  lights  increased  from  relatively  few  to  23  million. 

Of  35  million  homes  reporting  on  sanitary  equipment  and  lighting,  a  little  more 
than  54  percent  were  equipped  with  private  baths  and  flush  toilets  and  78  percent  had 
electric  lights.  Reports  from  about  34  million  homes  show  that  83  percent  have  radios 
and  over  44  percent  have  mechanical  refrigeration  equipment. 

Many  times  in  the  historic  past  there  has  been  plenty  for  the  few,  but  never  before 
for  the  many.  Now  science  and  its  applications  makes  it  possible  for  the  first  time  to 
provide  entire  populations  with  plenty — not  with  food  and  homes  and  physical 
things  alone,  but  with  opportunities  for  developing  and  exercising  the  high  and  varied 
faculties  which  are  the  chief  distinguishing  characteristics  of  man. 

— Bulletin  of  the  American   Association  for  the    ai>\  wcement  of  Science 

(Section  Stamp) 


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TECHNOCRACY 

DICE5T 


THE    ONLY    MAGAZINE    IN    CANADA    THAT    IS    PREPARING   THE    PEOPLE   OF   THIS 
COUNTRY    FOR    SOCIAL    CHANGE 


MARCH,   1945 


VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 


No.  81 


-STAFF- 


DONALD   Bruce    Editor 

W.  D.  Ellwyn  Assistant  Editor 

Dorothy  Fearman  Assistant  Editor 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Assistant  Editor 


M.  C.  McKay  Business  Manager 

G.  H.  Connor  Circulation  Manager 

V.   A.   Knudsen    Research 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Production 


Service  from  All  and  Profits  to  None     3 

Gleaned  from  the  Research  Files  -  Part  1  4 

The  CCF  Concoction  -  Part  3  9 

What  Is  This  Canada?  17 

What  Price  Security? 23 

Spineless  Apathy  and  Flabby  Inertia    27 

The  Elimination  of  Leisure 30 

Blood,  Sweat  and  Profits 41 

The  Story  of  Alberta  Coal  -  Part  2   43 

The  Technocracy  Study  Course    47 

Save  a  Soldier  —  Give  Your  Blood!  48 

Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349,  Techno- 
cracy Inc.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies  25  cents.  Twelve  issues  for  $2.50; 
six  issues  for  $1.25.  Bundle  rates  10  to  100,  20  cents  per  copy;  100  copies  or 
more,  19  cents  each.  Continental  Headquarters  of  Technocracy  Inc.  is  at  155 
E.  44th  St.,  New  York  17,  N.  Y.  Send  all  correspondence  and  manuscripts  and 
make  all  money  orders  payable  to  Technocracy  Digest,  625  West  Pender  St., 
Vancouver,  B.  C  Entered  as  second  class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  Department, 
Ottawa.     Printed  in  Canada. 

FRONT  COVER 

One  of  the  major  engineering  feats  of  history  —  the  Shipshaw  Hydroelectric  Project — 
has  been  completed  in  the  Canadian  wilds  under  conditions  of  30  to  50  degrees  below 
zero  temperatures,  inadequate  road  and  railroad  supply  lines,  and  wartime  difficulties 
in  obtaining  equipment  for  the  job.  Twelve  giant  turbogenerators  now  produce 
approximately  1,500,000  h.p.  to  enable  the  Aluminum  Co.  of  Canada  to  refine  from 
bauxite  the  aluminum  which  is  now  dropping  'eggs'  on  Hitler  and  Hirohito.  The 
Saguenay  River  in  the  province  of  Quebec  drops  about  the  height  of  a  17  storey 
building  within  a  few  miles,  and  was  chosen  for  this  power  development  which  now 
produces  50%  more  power  than   Boulder  Dam.  (National   Film    Board   Photo  I 


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Service  from  111  and  Profits  to  tone! 


■  '  <••; 


■ 


THE  events  of  the  past  month 
have  confirmed  again  the 
validity  of  Technocracy's  Victory 
Program. 

The  Vancouver  street  railway 
strike  would  never  have  occurred 
if  the  Dominion  Government  had 
conscripted  men,  machines,  ma- 
teriel, and  money,  and  put  every 
citizen  on  the  same  economic 
basis  as  the  Armed  Forces.  All 
such  industrial  disputes  over 
wages  would  disappear  as  no  sec- 
tion of  the  community  would  re- 
ceive less  or  more  than  any  other 
group. 

The  'Zombie'  mass  desertions 
would  never  have  taken  place  if 
Total  Conscription  had  been  in- 
stalled. Even  with  just  complete 
conscription  of  manpower,  the 
United  States  escaped  such  a  fi- 
asco. 

Another  difficulty  which  could 
have  been  avoided  by  the  institu- 
tion of  Total  Conscription  is  the 
unemployment  problem  that  we 
are  facing  while  the  war  is  on. 
Even  the  veterans  of  this  war  are 
being  'socially  disinherited'  (see 
back  cover  of  this  magazine). 

How  can  we  claim  that  this  is 
an  all-out  war  effort  when  some 
of  our  citizens  who  are  able  and 
willing  to  work  are  not  utilized? 


And  if  we  suffer  unemployment 
now,  how  much  worse  will  the 
situation  be  when  the  war  ends? 

These  and  other  questions 
which  query  'the  shape  of  things 
to  come'  cannot  be  brushed  aside, 
except  at  the  national  peril.  As 
the  war  in  Europe  draws  to  a 
close  we  must  face  the  facts  with- 
out flinching. 

The  pussyfooting  and  'mudd- 
ling through'  policy  of  our  politi- 
cal government  in  this  war  has 
disrupted  national  unity  and  des- 
troyed national  morale.  If  our 
government  persists  in  this  policy 
when  we  are  confronted  with  the 
still  more  dangerous  problems  of 
peace,  this  nation  will  come  to 
the  end  of  its  road  in  a  swamp 
of  economic  chaos  and  mob  hy- 
steria. 

The  solution  is  to  install  Total 
Conscription  of  Men,  Machines, 
Materiel,  and  Money  with  Na- 
tional Service  from  All  and  Pro- 
fits to  None.  Only  this  program 
can  stabilize  our  economy  in  the 
post-war  period  and  give  us  an 
opportunity  to  institute  the  social 
mechanism  which  will  provide 
North  Americans  with  the  social 
security  made  possible  by  our 
vastly  expanded  production  faci- 
lities. —The  Editor 


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One  after  another  the  bastions  of  toil  and  sweat  go  down  before 
the  advances  of  technology.  More  workers  are  freed  from  hand-tool 
methods;   more  goods  are  produced  per  man-hour  of  labor. 


ON  the  production  front  in 
North  America  there  is  a  con- 
stant war  against  scarcity  and 
toil.  One  after  another  the  bas- 
tions of  toil  and  sweat  go  down 
before  the  advances  of  techno- 
logy. More  workers  are  freed 
from  hand-tool  methods;  more 
goods  are  produced  per  man-hour 
of  labor. 

This  march  of  technology  may 
be  indicated  by  a  new  method  or 
process  in  one  place,  a  new  ma- 
chine somewhere  else.  The  im- 
provement may  be  in  any  branch 
of  industry,  in  any  of  the  services, 
in  any  phase  of  agriculture;  al- 
ways the  result  is  the  same — 
more  production  with  less  em- 
ployment. 

Streaming  into  Research  every 
month  come  hundreds  of  news 
items  about  technological  devel- 
opments. They  come  from  all 
over  this  Continent,  and  from 
every  department  of  human  en- 
deavor. At  random  we  pick  a 
few  representative  examples  of 
recent  data: 

One  of  the  most  outstanding 
bastions  of  toil  to  fall  to  tech- 
nology recently  is  the  sugar-cane 


harvest  of  Louisiana.  In  the 
centre  of  the  'cheap  labor'  mar- 
ket, Louisiana  cane  growers  have 
long  been  indifferent  to  the  possi- 
bilities of  mechanical  harvesting. 
For  over  40  years  various  invent- 
ors have  been  trying  to  develop 
a  practical  cane  harvester,  but  it 
took  an  acute  shortage  of  labor 
to  make  most  growers  interested 
in  machines. 

Most  of  the  machines  tried  out 
have  encountered  the  difficulties 
of  lack  of  maneuverability,  high 
first  cost,  great  bulk  and  excess 
weight. 

Technical  problems  also  pre- 
sented great  difficulties.  Sugar 
cane  is  tough  and  bulky,  and 
much  harder  to  cut  than  hay.  The 
richest  part  of  the  cane  is  nearest 
the  ground,  and  involves  the  risk 
of  tool  damage.  Canes  are  often 
fallen  and  tangled,  making  hand- 
ling and  lifting  difficult.  Any 
mechanical  harvester  must  be  de- 
signed to  avoid  damage  of  the 
stubble  crop  expected  from  the 
cane.  Mechanical  tapping  en- 
countered an  extra  problem  in 
the  varying  lengths  of  the  cane. 

Despite    all   the   technical   and 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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mechanical  difficulties  and  the 
abundance  of  cheap  labor,  by 
1941  there  were  122  practical 
cane  harvesting  machines  in  op- 
eration in  Louisiana.  These  122 
machines,  in  1941,  harvested 
about  615,000  tons  of  cane.  As 
labor  grew  scarce  the  demand  for 
machines  increased,  and  in  1942 
Louisiana  had  272  cane  harvest- 
ers which  handled  about  1,540,000 
tons  of  cane.  During  the  follow- 
ing year  the  materials  shortage 
curtailed  production  of  machines, 
and  only  84  were  built. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  356 
mechanical  cane  harvesters  in  the 
Louisiana  cane  fields  for  the  1944 
crop  did  the  work  of  over  21,000 
hand  laborers.  Of  the  30,000  to 
35,000  workers  who  were  former- 
ly required  in  the  Louisiana  cane 
harvest  each  year,  not  more  than 
10,000  can  expect  to  be  required 
again.  With  mechanical  harvest- 
ing costing  from  15  cents  to  25 
cents  per  ton  compared  to  the 
$1.25  per  ton  for  even  the  cheap- 
est labor,  it  is  not  likely  the  re- 
maining 10,000  jobs  will  last  long. 

For  generations  the  cotton 
fields  of  the  Deep  South  have 
been  America's  greatest  employ- 
ers of  cheap  hand  labor,  but  even 
in  those  fields  the  same  progres- 
sive development  of  technology 
is  taking  place. 

One  of  the  most  recent  high- 
lights  of  that  progression  is  the 

MARCH,  19« 


'mechanical  cotton  crop'.  This 
crop  was  raised  on  the  Hopson 
plantation  near  Clarksdale,  Miss., 
and  is  probably  the  first  crop  of 
cotton  ever  produced  without  any 
hand-labor  at  any  stage  of  its  de- 
velopment. The  Hopson  planta- 
tion uses  8  mechanical  cotton 
pickers  and  mechanical  planters, 
as  well  as  tractors  and  flame- 
throwing  weed  killers. 

One  of  the  mechanical  pickers 
used  on  this  farm  is  of  the  two- 
row  type,  under  experimental  op- 
eration. The  Rust  Bros,  have  also 
a  new  improved  model  under  test. 

These  cotton  pickers  are  stead- 
ily being  improved.  Having  eli- 
minated the  drudgery  of  picking, 
the  machine  pickers  are  now  be- 
ing equipped  with  hydraulic  lifts 
which  make  the  automatic  a  self- 
unloader  also.  The  advent  of 
machine  planting,  machine  weed- 
ing (flame  burning),  machine 
picking,  and  machine  unloading 
is  bringing  about  a  vast  change  in 
the  cotton  fields  of  the  South. 

In  the  beet  harvest  also  the 
trend  is  away  from  toil  and  in- 
efficiency. Before  the  war  a 
first  class  farm  worker  could  av- 
erage 5  to  6  tons  per  day  in  top- 
ping and  loading  beets.  With  the 
war-time  labor  now  available  the 
average  has  fallen  to  about  3  tons 
per  man  per  day.  With  hand- 
labor,  of  course,  the  digging  of 
the  beets  is  a  separate  task. 


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Recent  information  about  the 
Marion  Beet  Harvesters  shows 
that  the  top  scoring  machine  of 
the  fleet  this  last  season  averaged 
185  tons  per  day  for  12,000  tons 
in  65  days  of  work.  This  machine 
digs,  tops,  and  loads  the  beets 
all  in  one  operation.  The  work 
of  this  one  machine  deprived 
labor  of  at  least  3700  man-days  of 
heart-breaking,  back-bending  toil 
in  topping  and  loading  the  beets, 
without  considering  the  drudg- 
ery of  the  digging. 

Not  only  in  sugar  cane,  cotton 
and  beets  do  we  find  this  increas- 
ed efficiency.  About  a  year  ago 
500  self-propelled  14  foot  com- 
bines were  manufactured  in  Ca- 
nada by  Massey-Harris  to  be  used 
in  the  harvest  fields  of  the  U.  S. 
This  Harvest  Brigade  set  as  its 
goal  the  harvesting  of  1  million 
acres  in  one  season,  and  started 
work  in  May  in  southern  Texas, 
working  north  with  the  ripening 
crops. 

During  the  season  the  Harvest 
Brigade  exceeded  its  quota  of  1 
million  acres,  and  it  is  estimated 
that  these  machines  saved  500,000 
bushels  of  wheat  which  would 
have  been  knocked  flat  and  lost 
on  the  first  swath,  if  tractor 
drawn  combines  had  been  used. 

Even  the  harvest  of  the  lowly 
cranberry  is  now  to  be  subjected 
to  the  advance  of  technology.  To 
replace  the  hand-and-knees  meth- 


od of  gathering  cranberries  an  air 
machine  has  been  developed 
which  sucks  the  berries  right  off 
the  branches  as  the  picking 
nozzles  are  swung  to  and  fro  ac- 
ross the  ankle-high  crop.  It  is 
estimated  that  one  man,  by  this 
method,  can  do  the  work  of  10 
hand  pickers  without  having  to 
bend  his  back — and  the  method 
has  just  started  to  develop. 

Air  is  also  being  used  in  a  new 
machine  developed  to  blow  bugs 
off  plants,  such  as  potatoes,  soy- 
beans, and  cotton.  This  machine, 
pushed  by  a  tractor,  thoroughly 
cleans  two  rows  at  a  time,  and 
the  bugs  are  caught  in  hanging 
bags  for  easy  disposal.  This  'de- 
bugging of  the  crops'  needs  only 
to  be  timed  to  the  growing 
periods  of  the  various  pests,  thus 
eliminating  the  need  for  a  great 
deal  of  spraying,  hand  tending, 
and  insecticides. 

The  use  of  air  for  pushing  or 
pulling  helps  to  cut  time  and 
labor  in  many  industrial  plants. 
A  typical  application  of  the  pull- 
ing effect  is  that  in  which  suction 
tubes  are  being  used  to  unload 
peanut  trucks  at  a  Florida  fact- 
ory. The  tube  nozzles  are  drop- 
ped into  the  load  of  peanuts,  a 
button  is  pressed,  and  the  load 
is  transferred  to  the  storage  bins 
without  any  toil  or  sweat.  In  this 
plant  almost  everything  is  done 
without  toil,  push-button  electri- 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


cal  control  or  automatic  opera- 
tion performing  the  work  of  mov- 
ing  and   milling  the  peanuts. 

Under  this  pressure  of  war- 
time conditions  the  commercial 
laundries  have  been  hard  pressed 
to  meet  demands.  The  man- 
power shortage,  the  equipment 
shortage,  and  the  fuel  shortage 
all  have  combined  to  hold  down 
operations  in  the  laundries  at  a 
time  when  all  the  war-busy 
people  wanted  the  laundries  to 
do  their  washing.  Relief  to  the 
harassed  laundry  operator  has 
come  in  the  form  of  a  little  tech- 
nological improvement,  called  the 
centrifugal-washing-rinsing  pro- 
cess. The  process  can  be  put  in- 
to operation  by  slightly  modify- 
ing the  standard  laundry  proced- 
ure; and  without  buying  new 
equipment.  The  process  doubles 
the  daily  production  capacity  of 
the  washing  machines,  and  re- 
quires only  half  the  amount  of 
hot  water  needed  in  the  standard 
procedure.  This  is  a  typical  ex- 
ample of  North  American  tech- 
nology on  the  march — double  the 
capacity  without  increasing  the 
floor  space  or  the  equipment,  and 
without  increasing  the  employ- 
ment; and  at  the  same  time  cut- 
ting the  fuel  requirements  in 
half. 

The  development  of  North 
American  technology  is  tending 
to   make   jobs   more   pleasant,   as 


well  as  more  productive — in  the 
process  of  eliminating  the  job  al- 
together. Typical  is  Timkin's 
branch  plant  at  Canton,  Ohio, 
where  90  women  working  in 
three  5  hour  shifts  produce  18,000 
roller  bearings  per  day.  Pleasant 
surroundings,  motion  economy) 
and  hours  of  work  have  been 
used  to  attract  housewives  as  a 
means  of  overcoming  the  short- 
age of  workers.  By  eliminating 
waste  motion  and  using  an  almost 
continuous  flow  of  materials  from 
start  to  packaging  this  plant  has 
demonstrated  an  efficiency  over 
20  percent  greater  than  that  of 
the  main  plant.  And  these  90 
housewives  enjoy  working  at  the 
plant. 

Postwar  employment  oppor- 
tunities for  veterans  will  be  in- 
fluenced by  many  factors  besides 
technological  improvements.  One 
of  those  factors  will  be  the  em- 
ployment of  women  in  postwar 
jobs. 

In  recent  months  two  women's 
conferences  of  national  scope 
have  been  held  in  the  U.S.  The 
main  objective  of  each  was  to  as- 
sure that  women  now  working 
would  be  given  a  fair  chance  to 
continue  on  the  job  after  the 
war.  The  women  don't  want  any 
unfair  application  of  the  general 
seniority   rule   in   lay-offs. 

These     conferences     estimated 


MARCH,  1945 


that  postwar  industry  will  employ 
3  million  more  women  than  were 
employed  when  the  U.S.  entered 
the  war — a  total  of  about  15,000,- 


000  women  in  jobs.     Something 
for  the  postwar  planners  of  poli- 
tics and  business  to  think  about! 
—Research  Committee,  12349-1 


Bee-Lines  to  Berlin 


A  STRAIGHT  LINE— really  straight— is  one  of  the  hardest  things 
in  the  world  to  draw.  Yet  thousands  of  mathematically  straight 
lines  are  necessary  to  the  building  of  a  big  airplane  like  the  Boeing  Fly- 
ing Fortress. 

'The  master  layout  drawings  for  every  part  of  a  bomber  must  be 
made  on  flat  sheets  of  lacquered  steel.  To  insure  the  accuracy  of  the 
finished  drawing,  the  metal  is  first  scribed  with  intersecting  reference 
lines  like  those  on  a  gigantic  sheet  of  graph  paper.  And  the  lines  must 
cross  each  other  in  perfect  10-inch  squares,  without  deviating  as  much 
as  1/ 100th  of  an  inch. 

'Until  recently  this  was  a  slow  and  laborious  job.  Draftsmen  sprawl- 
ed across  the  big  tables  hour  after  hour,  ruling  reference  lines  with 
straight-edges.  But  the  slightest  miscalculation — even  the  expansion  of 
metal  caused  by  the  sun's  heat — might  ruin  their  efforts.  Drawing  the 
grid  lines  on  master  layouts  for  the  frames  and  bulkheads  of  one  model 
alone  consumed  5,600  hours. 

'Boeing  engineers  determined  to  change  the  method.  They  built  the 
'Grid  Machine' — a  simple,  supremely  accurate  device  that  draws  a 
dozen  straight  lines  while  you  watch.  It  never  makes  a  mistake.  And 
it  has  already  saved  thousands  of  priceless  hours  between  blueprint 
and  bombing  mission.  Today  the  work  is  done  in  less  than  a  tenth  of 
the  former  time.' 

This  Boeing  advertisement  shows  how  technology  has  once  again 
been  applied  to  a  ticklish  production  problem  and  once  again  techno- 
logy has  won.  It  is  so  in  every  phase  of  this  age  of  power  on  the  North 
American  Continent.  Every  time  a  problem  is  presented  to  the  scientist, 
engineer  or  technologist,  he  answers  it  and  wins;  and  in  so  doing  he 
automatically  produces  a  machine  which  will  do  the  work  faster  and 
more  accurately  while  at  the  same  time  displacing  manpower. 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


The  HI  Concoction 


Political  liberty  confers  only  the  power  of  occasional  expression 
upon  the  individual  citizen.  There  is  only  one  real  power  that  can 
be  conferred  upon  any  citizen  in  North  America  today — adequate 
purchasing  power. 

(continued  from  last  MONTH  J 


V/  ■    I^H 


■ 


1 1 

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THE  C  C  F  would  continue 
with  political  government, 
whereas  Technocracy  will  install 
a  new  social  technic  which  is 
compatible  with  the  Power  Age. 

In  one  of  his  form  letters  to 
Technocrats,  CCF  Leader  Cold- 
well  stated:  'I  believe  that  the 
CCF  program  contains  every  ad- 
Vantage  that  Technocracy  Inc. 
envisages,  but  with  this  import- 
ant difference,  that  the  CCF  is 
determined  to  uphold  and  streng- 
then the  supremacy  of  the  popu- 
larly elected  Parliament.' 

Apparently  the  CCFers  do  not 
yet  realize  that  as  our  North 
American  civilization  becomes 
more  highly  mechanized,  tenu- 
ous, and  complex,  the  social 
methods  handed  down  to  us  from 
the  remote  past  become  more 
archaic,  inadequate,  and  incom- 
petent. Not  only  has  the  Price 
System  been  outmoded  by  the 
march  of  physical  events,  but  our 
political  government  has  been 
rendered  an  obsolete  interference 
control. 

Dr.    Harry    Elmer    Barnes    has 


summed  up  the  situation  as  fol- 
lows in  his  History  of  Western 
Civilization: 

'It  would  scarcely  seem  that 
(political)  democracy  is  suited  to 
the  exacting  requirements  of  our 
complicated  industrial  civiliza- 
tion. Indeed,  some  of  our  best 
writers  on  contemporary  society 
are  coming  to  doubt  the  very 
adequacy  of  political  institutions 
as  a  mode  of  social  control  and 
are  demanding  a  new  form  of 
social  control  based  upon  and 
conforming  to  the  economic  and 
social  realities  of  the  present  age. 
Technocracy  is  the  most  advanc- 
ed proposal  of  this  sort  .  .  .  .' 

The  social  conflict  that  we  are 
now  in  the  midst  of  is  a  conflict 
between  physical  reality  and  the 
antiquated  ideology  of  a  bygone 
age.  Today,  with  the  operation 
of  our  technological  mechanism, 
the  social  control  technic  that 
must  and  will  be  adopted  is  that 
which  most  nearly  conforms  to 
the  technological  operating  re- 
quirements of  that  mechanism. 

These     requirements     can     be 


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known  only  by  those  who  are 
intimately  familiar  with  the  tech- 
nical details  of  that  mechanism — 
our  technically  trained  personnel; 
though  prior  to  there  being  a 
general  recognition  of  this  fact, 
we  may  expect  to  witness  per- 
formances on  the  part  of  our  edu- 
cators, economists,  sociologists, 
lawyers,  politicians,  and  business 
men  that  will  parallel  the  per- 
formances of  all  the  witch  doctors 
of  preceding  ages. 

It  was  a  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  we  are  confronted  with  a 
technological  problem  which  re- 
quires a  technological  solution, 
that  prompted  the  scientists  and 
technologists,  who  later  organized 
Technocracy,  to  begin  the  study 
of  the  problem  and  its  solution  as 
early  as  the  year  1919.  Out  of 
this  study  there  has  been  pro- 
duced the  design  of  a  social  or- 
ganization that  is  compatible 
with  the  Power  Age.  An  out- 
line of  some  of  its  principal  fea- 
tures is  presented  in  the  following 
material  condensed  from  the 
Technocracy  Study  Course. 

To  begin  with,  let  us  recall  that 
the  population  falls  into  three 
social  classes  as  regards  their 
ability  to  do  service.  The  first  is 
composed  of  those  who,  because 
of  their  youthfulness,  have  not 
yet  begun  their  service.  This  in- 
cludes the  period  from  infancy 
up  through  all  stages     of    formal 


education.  After  this  period 
comes  the  second,  during  which 
the  individual  performs  a  social 
service  at  some  function  or  other. 
Finally,  the  last  period  is  that  of 
retirement,  which  extends  from 
the  end  of  the  period  of  service 
until  the  death  of  the  individual. 
These  three  periods  embrace  the 
activities  of  all  normal  individ- 
uals. There  is  always  another 
smaller  group  which,  because  of 
ill-health,  or  some  other  form  of 
incapacitation,  is  not  performing 
any  useful  social  service  at  a  time 
when  it  normally  would  be. 

The  social  organization,  there- 
fore, must  embrace  all  those  of. 
both  sexes  who  are  not  exempt 
from  the  performance  of  some 
useful  function  because  of  be- 
longing to  one  of  the  other 
groups.  Let  it  be  emphasized  that 
these  groups  of  a  population  are 
not  something  new,  but  are 
groups  that  exist  in  any  society. 
The  chief  difference  is  that  in 
this  case  we  have  deliberately  left 
out  certain  groups  which  ordin- 
arily exist,  namely,  those  who 
perform  no  useful  social  service 
though  able  to  do  so,  and  those 
whose  services  are  definitely 
socially  objectionable.  It  is  the 
group  which  is  giving  service  at 
some  socially  useful  function 
which  constitutes  the  personnel  of 
our  operating  organization. 

What  must  this  organization  do? 


10 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


It  must  operate  the  entire  phy- 
sical equipment  of  the  North 
American  Continent.  It  must  per- 
form all  service  functions,  such 
as  public  health,  education,  rec- 
reation, etc.,  for  the  population 
of  this  entire  area.  In  other 
words,  it  has  to  man  every  job 
that  exists. 

What  other  properties  must, 
this  organization  have? 

It  must  see  to  it  that  the  right 
man  is  in  the  right  place.  This 
depends  both  upon  the  technical 
qualifications  of  the  individual  as 
compared  with  the  corresponding 
requirements  of  the  job,  and  also 
upon  the  biological  factors  of  the 
human  animal.  It  must  see  to  it 
that  the  man  who  is  in  the  posi- 
tion to  give  orders  to  other  men 
must  be  the  type  who,  in  an  un- 
controlled situation,  would  spon- 
taneously assume  that  position  a- 
mong  his  fellows.  There  must  be 
as  far  as  possible  no  inversion  of 
the  natural  'peck-rights'  among 
the  men.  It  must  provide  ample 
leeway  for  the  expression  of  in- 
dividual initiative  on  the  part  of 
those  gifted  with  such  modes  of 
behavior,  so  long  as  such  ex- 
pression of  individual  initiative 
does  not  occur  in  modes  of  action 
which  are  themselves  socially  ob- 
jectionable. It  must  be  dynamic 
rather  than  static.  This  is  to  say, 
the  operations  themselves  must 
be  allowed  to  undergo  a  normal 


progressive  evolution,  including 
an  evolution  in  the  industrial 
equipment,  and  the  organization 
structure  must  likewise  evolve  to 
whatever  extent  becomes  neces- 
sary. 

The  general  form  of  the  organi- 
zation is  dictated  by  the  functions 
which  must  be  performed.  Thus, 
there  is  a  direct  functional  rela- 
tionship between  the  conductor 
and  the  engineer  on  a  railway 
train,  whereas  there  is  no  func- 
tional relationship  whatever  be- 
tween the  members-at-large  of  a 
political  organization.  The  major 
divisions  of  this  organization, 
therefore,  would  be  automatically 
determined  by  the  major  divi- 
sions of  the  functions  that  must 
be  performed.  The  general  func- 
tion of  communications,  for  in- 
stance^— mail,  telegraph,  tele- 
phone, and  radio — automatically 
constitutes  a  functional  unit. 

Lest  the  above  specifications  of 
a  functional  organization  tend  to 
frighten  one,  let  us  look  about  at 
some  of  the  functional  organiza- 
tions which  exist  already.  One 
of  the  largest  single  functional 
organizations  existing  at  the  pre- 
sent time  is  that  of  the  Bell  Tele- 
phone system.  What  we  mean 
particularly  here  is  that  branch 
of  the  Bell  system  personnel  that 
designs,  constructs,  installs,  main- 
tains and  operates  the  physical 
equipment  of  the  system.  The  fin- 


MARCH,  1945 


11 


ancial  superstructure — the  stock 
and  bond  holders,  the  board  of 
directors,  the  president  of  the 
company,  and  other  similar  offi- 
cials whose  duties  are  chiefly 
financial,  are  distinctly  not  a  part 
of  this  functional  organization, 
and  technically  their  services 
could  readily  be  dispensed  with. 
This  functional  organization  com- 
prises upwards  of  300,000  people. 
It  is  of  interest  to  review  what 
its  performance  is  and  something 
of  its  internal  structure,  since 
relationships  which  obtain  in  or- 
ganizations of  this  immensity  will 
undoubtedly  likewise  obtain  in 
the  greater  organization  whose 
design  we  are  anticipating. 

What  are  the  characteristics  of 
this  telephone  organization? 

(1)  It  maintains  in  continuous 
operation  what  is  probably  the 
most  complex,  interconnected  ar- 
ray of  physical  apparatus  in  exist- 
ence. 

(2)  It  is  dynamic  in  that  it  is 
continually  changing  the  appara- 
tus with  which  it  has  to  deal,  and 
remoulding  the  organization  ac- 
cordingly. Here  we  have  a  single 
organization  which  came  into  ex- 
istence as  a  mere  handful  of  men 
in  the  1880's.  Starting  initially 
with  no  equipment,  it  has  design- 
ed, built,  and  installed  equipment, 
and  replaced  this  with  still  new- 
er equipment,  until  now  it  spans 
as  a  single  network  most  of  the 


North  American  Continent,  and 
maintains  inter-connecting  long- 
distance service  to  almost  all 
parts  of  the  world.  All  this  has 
been  done  with  rarely  an  inter- 
ruption' of  24  hour-per-day  ser- 
vice to  the  individual  subscriber. 
The  organization  itself  has  grown 
in  the  meantime  from  zero  to 
300,000  people. 

(3)  That  somehow  or  other  the 
right  man  must  have  been  placed 
in  the  right  job  is  sufficiently  at- 
tested by  the  fact  that  the  system 
works.  The  fact  that  an  indivi- 
dual on  any  one  telephone  in  a 
given  city  can  call  any  other  tele- 
phone in  that  city  at  any  hour  of 
the  day  or  night,  or  that  a  long- 
distance call  can  be  completed  in 
a  similar  manner  across  the  Con- 
tinent in  a  mere  matter  of  a  min- 
ute or  two,  is  ample  evidence 
that  the  individuals  in  whatever 
capacity  in  the  functional  opera- 
ton  of  the  telephone  system  must 
be  competent  to  handle  their 
jobs. 

Thus  we  see  that  this  function- 
al organization  satisfies  a  number 
of  the  basic  requirements  of  the 
organization  whose  design  we 
contemplate.  It  is  worthwhile, 
therefore,  to  examine  somewhat 
the  internal  structure  of  this  or- 
ganization. 

What  is  the  method  whereby 
the  right  man  is  found  for  the 
right  place? 


12 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


What  is  the  basis  on  which  it 
is  decided  that  a  telephone  cir- 
cuit will  be  according  to  one 
wiring  diagram  and  not  accord- 
ing to  another? 

The  fitting  of  the  man  to  the 
job  is  not  done  by  election  or  by 
any  of  the  familiar  democratic 
or  political  procedures.  The  man 
gets  his  job  by  appointment,  and 
he  is  promoted  or  demoted  also 
by  appointment.  The  people 
making  the  appointment  are  in- 
variably those  who  are  familiar 
both  with  the  technical  require- 
ments of  the  job  and  with  the 
technical  qualifications  of  the 
man.  An  error  of  appointment 
invariably  shows  up  in  the  in- 
ability of  the  appointee  to  hold 
the  job,  but  such  errors  can 
promptly  be  corrected  by  demo- 
tion or  transfer  until  the  man 
finds  a  job  which  he  can  per- 
form. This  appointive  system 
pyramids  on  up  through  the 
ranks  of  all  functional  sub-divi- 
sions of  the  system,  and  even  the 
chief  engineers  and  operating 
vice-presidents  attain  and  hold 
their  positions  likewise  by  ap- 
pointment. It  is  here  that  the 
functional  organization  comes  to 
the  apex  of  its  pyramid  and  ends, 
and  where  the  financial  super- 
structure begins.  At  this  point 
also  the  criteria  of  performance 
suddenly  change.  In  the  func- 
tional  sequence   the    criterion   of 


performance  is  how  well  the  tele- 
phone system  works.  In  the  fin- 
ancial superstructure  the  criter- 
ion of  performance  is  that  amount 
of  dividends  paid  to  the  stock- 
holders. Even  the  personnel  of 
this  latter  are  not  the  free  agents 
they  are  commonly  presumed  to 
be,  because  if  the  dividend  rate 
is  not  maintained  there  is  a  high 
probability  that  even  their  jobs 
will  be  vacated,  and  by  appoint- 
ment. 

The  other  question  that  re- 
mains to  be  considered  is  that  of 
the  method  of  arriving  at  tech- 
nical decisions  regarding  matters 
pertaining  to  the  physical  equip- 
ment. If  the  telephone  service 
is  to  be  maintained  there  is  an 
infinitely  wider  variety  of  things 
which  cannot  be  done  than  there 
are  of  things  which  can  be  done. 
Electrical  circuits  are  no  respect- 
ers of  persons,  and  if  a  circuit  is 
dictated  which  is  contrary  to 
Ohm's  Law,  or  any  of  a  dozen 
other  fixed  electrical  relation- 
ships, it  will  not  work  even  if  the 
chief  engineer  himself  requests  it. 
It  might  with  some  justice  be 
said  that  the  greater  part  of  one's 
technical  training  in  such  posi- 
tions consists  in  knowing  what 
not  to  do,  or  at  least  what  not 
to  try.  As  long  as  telephone  ser- 
vice is  the  final  criterion,  deci- 
sions as  to  which  circuits  will 
be  given  preference  are  made,  not 


MARCH,  1945 


13 


I  ^1    ' 


by  chief  engineers,  but  by  results 
of  experiment.  That  circuit  will 
be  used  which  upon  experiment 
gives  the  best  results.  A  large 
part  of  technical  knowledge  con- 
sists in  knowing  on  the  basis  of 
experiments  already  performed 
which  of  two  things  will  work 
the  better.  In  case  such  know- 
ledge does  not  exist  already  it 
is  a  problem  for  the  research 
staff,  and  not  for  the  chief  ex- 
ecutive. The  research  staff  dis- 
covers which  mode  of  procedure 
is  best,  tries  it  out  on  a  small 
scale  until  it  is  perfected,  and 
designs  similar  equipment  for 
large  scale  use.  The  chief  execu- 
tive sees  that  these  designs  arc 
executed. 

Such  are  some  of  the  basic 
properties  of  any  competent  func- 
tional organization.  It  has  no 
political  precedents.  It  is  neither 
democratic,  autocratic,  nor  dicta- 
torial. It  is  determined  by  the 
requirements  of  the  job  that  has 
to  be  done,  and,  judging  from  the 
number  of  human  beings  per- 
forming quietly  within  such  or- 
ganizations, it  must  also  be  in 
accord  with  the  biological  nature 
of  the  human  animal. 

(Here  the  Technocracy  Study 
Course  charts  in  detail  the  social 
organization  which  can  operate 
efficiently  and  harmoniously  in 
the  Power  Age,  but  for  the  pur- 
poses of  this  particular  article  we 


have  gone  far  enough.) 

History  records  that  all  previ- 
ous attempts  in  the  organization 
of  human  beings  for  some  parti- 
cular economic  fulfillment  have 
been  promoted  on  the  general 
premises  of  the  expressed  will  of 
either  a  majority  or  a  minority. 
Here  on  the  North  American 
Continent  in  this  technological 
day  and  age,  modern  power  pro- 
duction methods  have  made  it 
imperative  that  the  expression  of 
the  conscious  will  on  the  part  of 
either  a  majority  or  a  minority 
must  conform  to  the  general  tech- 
nological progression  of  this  Con- 
tinental Area.  If  this  expression 
of  the  conscious  will  does  not 
conform  with  the  technological 
highway  to  the  New  America,  it 
will  be  in  conflict  with  the  social 
destiny  of  this   Continent. 

A  political  mandate  is  a  con- 
scious expression  of  the  will  of 
those  who  vote  for  the  mandate. 
Organization  of  human  beings  on 
the  North  American  Continent  to 
express  their  wills  through  stuff- 
ing their  ballots  in  the  ballot  box 
is  not  sufficient  to  accomplish  the 
transition  from  the  Price  System 
to  the  Technate.  Every  political 
organization  is  constructed  solely 
for  the  purpose  of  instructing  the 
voter  how  to  vote.  Any  political 
organization  that  obtains  a  maj- 
ority at  the  polls  has  merely 
demonstrated     its     efficiency     in 


14 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


I  ■■ 


IB  K 


'    I 


persuading  the  voter  to  express 
himself  in  their  favor.  It  is  well 
to  remember  that  all  votes  hither- 
to cast  in  a  Price  System  were 
never  for  its  abolition  but  only 
an  expression  of  a  difference  in 
opinion  as  to  its  administration  in 
dividing  up  the  spoils  of  scarcity. 

No  political  party  is  capable  of 
instituting  a  planned  economy  of 
abundance  on  the  Continent  of 
North  America.  The  people  of 
this  country  in  giving  any  politi- 
cal party  a  mandate  would  only 
be  conferring  the  privilege  upon 
them,  as  representatives  of  the 
people,  of  indulging  in  the  racket 
of  the  political  administration  of 
this  age  of  scarcity.  We  must 
never  forget  that  a  political  party 
operates  only  as  an  interference 
control  over  the  required  opera- 
tions of  the  social  mechanism. 
No  political  party  can  install  a 
Continental  engineering  design 
for  the  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  abundance. 

History  has  yet  to  record  the 
example  of  a  political  party  vot- 
ing itself  out  of  existence  for  the 
benefit  of  all.  No  bulldog  has 
ever  let  go  of  his  hold  on  another 
dog's  throat  upon  the  suggestion 
that  his  hold  was  injuring  the 
other  dog.  Psychological  moral- 
izing has  been  found  to  be  totally 
ineffective  in  changing  the  ac- 
tions of  the  said  bulldog.  Tech- 
nologically speaking,  an  applica- 

MARCH,  1945 


tion  of  turpentine  'a  posteriori' 
will  always  be  found  more  effi- 
cacious. 

Political  liberty  confers  only 
the  power  of  occasional  express- 
ion upon  the  individual  citizen. 
There  is  only  one  real  power  that 
can  be  conferred  upon  any  citi- 
zen on  this  Continent  today,  that 
is,  adequate  purchasing  power. 
For  the  first  time  in  history,  the 
power  of  social  decision  will  be 
placed  by  Technocracy  directly 
in  the  hands  of  the  people  them- 
selves. Canadians  and  Americans 
must  never  forget  that  as  you 
consume,  so  do  you  have  power. 
He  who  consumes  not  is  power- 
less. Technocracy  will  confer 
equal  purchasing  power  upon 
every  adult  citizen  as  a  constitu- 
tional right  of  the  people  which 
even  the  Technate  could  not  ab- 
rogate. 

Political  power  is  founded  on 
the  racket  of  spending  other 
people's  money.  It  has  become 
the  established  custom  that  the 
representative  of  the  people,  the 
politician,  is  the  only  one  com- 
petent to  spend  the  people's 
money.  In  a  Technate,  the  citi- 
zens for  the  first  time  will  enjoy 
the  exercise  of  the  only  power 
that  exists  in  a  modern  social 
mechanism.  The  power  to  rule 
is,  therefore,  vested  in  the  power 
to  consume,  with  equai  though 
not  transferable  consuming  pow- 


15 


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er  conferred  upon  every  citizen 
of  the  Technate.  The  decision  to 
exercise  that  power  may  be  made 
by  any  citizen  every  day  in  the 
year  if  he  so  desires.  No  citizen 
waits  for  periodic  elections  to  ex- 
press his  opinion  or  his  desire  in 
the  social  mechanism.  He  renders 
his  decision  every  time  he  pur- 
chases any  product  or  service 
anywhere  within  the  domain  of 
the  Technate.  He  will  require  no 
representatives  to  spend  his 
money  for  him. 

The  power  to  consume  is  an 
equal  claim  of  each  and  every 
citizen  upon  the  total  purchasing 
power  of  the  Technate,  and  as 
such  will  be  constitutionally  in- 
violate and  will  cease  only  upon 
the  death  of  the  citizen.  The 
power  to  consume  cannot  be 
penalized  by  any  due  process  of 
law,  that  is  to  say,  the  purchasing 
power  of  no  citizen  can  be  a- 
mended,  deleted,  or  subtracted 
in  any  way,  shape,  or  form.'  The 
citizen  of  a  Technate  shall  be 
penalized  by  the  addition  of  time 
to  his  social  service  contract  for 
the  commitment  of  a  misdemean- 
or or  statutory  offence,  but  his 
purchasing  power  remains  the 
same. 

The  purchasing  power  of  an  in- 


dividual citizen  is  the  equal  por- 
tion due  every  adult  of  the  total 
purchasing  power.  The  total  pur- 
chasing power  is  proportional  to 
the  rate  of  operations  of  the  en- 
tire social  mechanism  and,  there- 
fore, capable  of  purchasing  at  any 
time  the  mass-output  of  the  total 
goods  and  services  of  the  Con- 
tinent. 

Technocracy  is  hot  a  political 
party.  Technocracy  is  the  Tech- 
nological Army  of  the  New  Am- 
erica, and  as  such,  it  must  be  a 
vertical  alignment  of  all  function- 
al capacities  necessary  to  operate 
the  entire  social  mechanism  of 
this  Continent.  Technocracy  may 
take  political  action,  but  it  will 
only  do  so  when  the  Organization 
is  sufficiently  trained,  disciplined, 
and  widespread  to  permit  the  ex- 
ecution of  that  action  in  all  sec- 
tions of  this  country  simultane- 
ously. It  must  be  realized  that  if 
Technocracy  takes  political  ac- 
tion, it  will  have  to  be  the  last 
political  action,  as  this  action  will 
be  taken  for  the  transition  of  the 
present  economy  to  a  Technate, 
and  that  this  action  will  be  taken 
solely  for  the  abolition  of  this 
Price  System  and  its  accompany- 
ing political  administration. 

— Donald  Bruce 




*  THE  INVENTOR   OF  THE  AUTOMOBILE  has   had  more   influence   on   society 
than   the  combined  exploits  of  Napoleon,  Genghis  Khan,  and  Julius  Caesar. 

— Technological   Trends   and   National   Policy 


16 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


What  Is  This  Canada? 


In  population,  Canada  is  a  small  nation ;  in  natural  resources  and 
industrial  development,  she  is  next  to  the  United  States,  the  U.S.S.R., 
and  the  United  Kingdom.  Let  us  mobilize  our  technology  for  the 
provision  of  human  needs. 


H 

ETC  HI 

■  1 


WHAT  is  this  Canada?  Is  it 
merely  the  biggest  country 
in  the  Americas,  the  third  largest 
in  the  world,  with  an  area  of  3,- 
700,000  square  miles  stretching 
from  the  United  States  to  the 
North  Pole,  and  extending  over 
48  degrees  of  latitude  and  84  de- 
grees of  longtitude?  Is  it  merely 
a  land  of  rocks  which  form  the 
lid  on  a  treasure  house  of  nickel, 
gold,  silver,  asbestos,  radium, 
and  scores  of  other  minerals;  of 
wide  prairies  that  produce  the 
world's  fourth  greatest  crop  of 
wheat,  of  inexhaustible  forests, 
and  of  the  earth's  largest  area  of 
fresh  water  lakes? 

Canada  is  all  these,  and  more. 
Nature  bestowed  gifts  upon  her 
with  a  lavish  hand,  but  the  trea- 
sures lay  unused  for  the  benefit 
of  man  throughout  milleniums 
until  only  yesterday.  Canada's 
pride  today  is  that  so  great  de- 
velopment of  nature's  bounty  has 
been  accomplished  by  a  mere 
l/188th  of  the  world's  population. 

So  industriously  have  Canada's 


Condensed  from  the  December  and 
January  reports  of  the  Royal  Bank  of 
Canada. 


11 V2  million  people  explored  the 
wilderness,  probed  the  rocks, 
tilled  the  plains,  and  built  dams 
to  operate  their  factory  wheels, 
that  their  country  is  among  the 
world's  leaders  in  supplying  the 
world's  needs. 

Canada  is  first  in  production  of 
nickel,  newsprint,  asbestos,  plati- 
num, and  radium,  and  in  supply- 
ing food  for  the  United  Nations. 
She  is  the  world's  second  largest 
producer  of  alumium,  wood  pulp, 
and  hydro-electric  power,  and 
second  in  the  building  of  cargo 
ships.  Canada  is  third  in  produc- 
ing copper,  lead,  and  zinc,  third 
among  the  United  Nations'  sea 
powers,  and  the  third  trading  na- 
tion in  the  world.  She  is  fourth 
among  the  world's  air  powers, 
and  fourth  in  production  of 
United  Nations'  war  supplies. 

Canada's  scanty  population  has 
been  achieving  mightily  through 
inventive  genius  and  enterprise. 
These  have  developed  the  bene- 
fits inherent  in  the  Dominion's 
strategic  geographical  position, 
her  abundant  and  varied  natural 
resources,  her  wealth  of  cheap 
water  power,    her    thousands  of 


MARCH,  1945 


17 


miles  of  transportation  facilities 
by  rail,  highway,  waterway,  and 
air. 

The  average  Canadian  farmer 
owns  more  property,  is  in  better 
cash  position,  and  owes  less  in 
debts  than  ever  before  in  our 
history.  This  is  of  paramount  im- 
portance in  an  industry  which  is 
the  most  important  in  the  coun- 
try. It  employs,  according  to  the 
1941  census,  25  percent  of  the 
total  gainfully  employed  popula- 
tion, and  30  percent  of  the  gain- 
fully occupied  males.  Agricul- 
ture provides  raw  material  for 
many  factories,  and  its  products 
in  raw  or  manufactured  form  con- 
stitute a  very  large  percentage 
of  exports.  The  total  cash  in- 
come to  farmers  from  the  sale  of 
farm  products  during  the  twelve 
months  which  ended  in  June 
(1944)  was  more  than  $1%  bil- 
lion, while  gross  agricultural 
production  in  1943  amounted  to 
$2,223  million. 

Greatest  expansion  in  farming 
occurred  during  the  war  of  1914- 
18,  when  the  area  under  cultiva- 
tion increased  by  18  million 
acres.  The  Canadian  economy 
changed  from  one  of  foreign  in- 
vestments, building  railroads, 
cities,  and  farm  dwellings,  and 
opening  up  virgin  territory,  to 
one  of  production  for  export, 
making  Canada  much  more  vul- 
nerable to  world  conditions.     In 


this  war,  measures  were  adopted 
to  allow  agriculture  to  recover 
the  standing  it  lost  in  depression 
years.  Farm  prices  increased  60 
percent  from  1939  to  1944,  and 
at  the  same  time  farmers  raised 
their  output  between  40  and  50 
percent. 

Forests  are  of  tremendous  im- 
portance to  Canada,  only  two 
other  countries,  Brazil  and  Rus- 
sia, having  larger  forested  areas. 
Productive  forests  cover  770,000 
sq.  miles,  and  can  provide  contin- 
uous crops  of  useful  timber.  By 
far  the  larger  world  demand  for 
wood  is  for  softwood,  of  which 
Canada  possesses  the  principal 
reserves  within  the  British  Em- 
pire. Canada  is  the  largest  news- 
print producer  in  the  world,  with 
a  mill  capacity  four  times  that 
of  any  other  country,  equal  to  the 
combined  mill  capacities  of  the 
United  States,  Great  Britain, 
Norway,  Sweden,  and  Finland. 
In  production  of  wood  pulp, 
Canada  ranks  second  only  to  the 
United  States.  Besides  being 
Canada's  largest  manufacturing 
industry,  with  105  active  mills, 
the  pulp  and  paper  industry  is 
one  of  the  greatest  enterprises  in 
the  world.  Its  capital  at  the  out- 
break of  war  was  about  triple  the 
next  ranking  manufacturing  busi- 
ness in  Canada,  and  many  thou- 
sands of  shareholders  owned  the 
$665    million    invested    in    1942. 


18 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 

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The  census  recorded  38,000  work- 
ers in  mills  and  another  100,000 
or  more  engaged  in  woods  opera- 
tions. At  least  a  half  million 
people  draw  their  livelihood  from 
the  pulp  and  paper  industry,  in- 
cluding woods   operations. 

Mining  is  playing  an  increas- 
ingly important  part  in  the  eco- 
nomic life  of  Canada.  Develop- 
ment of  mining  has  opened  up 
new  territories,  built  communi- 
ties, and  provided  markets  for 
consumer  goods  and  mine  sup- 
plies. Canada  produces  95  per- 
cent of  the  nickel  output  of  the 
United  Nations,  20  percent  of  the 
zinc,  12  V2  percent  of  the  copper, 
15  percent  of  the  lead,  75  percent 
of  the  asbestos,  and  20  percent 
of  the  mercury.  At  the  outbreak 
of  war  Canada  stood  second 
among  the  countries  of  the  world 
in  gold  mining,  with  12.8  percent 
of  the  total  world  production. 
From  a  mere  $10  million  in  1886, 
the  value  of  minerals  rose  to 
$524  y2  million  in  1943,  the  value 
per  capita  being  $2.23  and  $44.40 
respectively.  Today,  Canada  has 
changed  from  an  exporter  of  ores 
or  semi-finished  mine  products  to 
the  position  where  smelting  and 
refining  operations  are  completed 
within  her  borders,  and  tomorrow 
will  see  still  greater  advances. 

Canada  has  probably  the  lar- 
gest fishing  grounds  in  the  world, 
and   in   the   latest   year   recorded 

MARCH.  1945 


the  value  of  fishery  products  was 
$75  million,  with  60,000  persons 
employed.  The  Atlantic  coast- 
line measures  over  5,000  miles, 
the  Bay  of  Fundy  has  8,000  sq. 
miles,  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence 
ten  times  that  area,  and,  adding 
them  all  together  the  Atlantic 
fisheries  comprise  not  less  than 
200,000  sq.  miles,  or  four-fifths 
the  area  of  the  fishing  grounds 
of  the  North  Atlantic.  In  addi- 
tion, there  are  on  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  15,000  sq.  miles  of  in- 
shore waters  controlled  entirely 
by  the  Dominion.  The  Pacific 
coast  of  Canada  measures  7,180 
miles.  Inland  lakes  contain  more 
than  half  of  the  fresh  water  on 
the  planet  .  .  .  Canada's  share  of 
the  Great  Lakes  alone  has  an 
area  of  more  than  34,000  sq. 
miles.  The  fish  caught  for  food 
embrace  60  kinds,  chief  being  sal- 
mon, herring,  cod,  lobster,  white- 
fish,  halibut,  haddock,  pickerel, 
and  trout. 

Fur  farming  represents  an  in- 
vestment of  $40  million,  and  the 
value  of  raw  fur  production  in 
1943  was  $28  million,  establishing 
a  new  record  11  percent  ahead 
of  1942.  This  includes  the  pro- 
duct of  fur  farms,  which  now 
supply  nearly  all  the  silver  fox 
and  about  44  percent  of  the  mink 
pelts. 

Manufacturing  has  been  ex- 
panded to  a  much  greater  extent 


19 


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than  in  the  first  world  war,  to 
meet  the  needs  of  the  fighting 
fronts.  In  the  first  war,  factories 
were  largely  confined  to  simple 
types  of  production  and  assembly, 
but  this  war  has  brought  about 
a  real  growth  in  industrial  poten- 
tial. Canada  is  almost  self-con- 
tained, from  raw  material  to  fin- 
ished products,  and  will  emerge 
from  the  war  with  much  the  same 
kind  of  plant  and  products  as 
other  highly  developed  nations 
possess.  Just  by  way  of  provid- 
ing background,  here  is  a  com- 
parison of  industry  three  years 
after  Confederation  and  in  1942: 


from  the  list  of  war  essentials, 
increased  in  capacity  from  100 
million  pounds  a  year  to  a  billion 
pounds  a  year,  and  peak  output 
exceeded  the  entire  1939  world 
production,  providing  the  equiva- 
lent of  40  percent  of  the  United 
Nations'  war  requirements.  Nor- 
mal peacetime  use  of  aluminum 
in  Canada  was  only  18  million 
pounds  a  year. 

The  textile  industry,  live,  effi- 
cient, and  well-established,  plung- 
ed into  war  production  without 
even  waiting  for  formal  orders, 
and  has  achieved  mightily  in  out- 
fitting Canadian  and  allied  armed 


Year  Capital 

1870    $78,000,000 

1942    $5,500,000,000 

In  1943,  for  which  the  other  data 
are  not  yet  available,  the  gross 
value  of  products  in  the  manu- 
facturing industries  was  about 
$8,393  million.  Industrial  capa- 
city is  now  three  times  what  it 
was  when   hostilities  broke   out. 

Production  of  machine  tools 
has  increased  500  percent  since 
the  war  started;  production  of 
motor  vehicles,  excluding  tanks, 
has  risen  from  137,000  units  to 
231,000;  airplanes  from  252  to  4,- 
160;  cargo  vessels  from  none  in 
1939  to  218  in  1943;  and  escort 
vessels  from  none  to  204. 

Aluminum,    recently    removed 


Employees 
188,000 

Wages 
$41,000,000 

Gross  Value 
of  Products 

$222,000,000 

1,150,000 

$1,683,000,000 

$7,554,000,000 

forces.  There  are  2,000  units, 
located  in  186  villages  and  towns 
scattered  through  all  provinces, 
employing  150,000  people  in  the 
processing  of  cotton,  wool,  rayon, 
and  nylon. 

The  construction  industry  has 
been  working  to  capacity  during 
the  war  years  on  government 
buildings,  airports  for  the  Empire 
Training  Plan,  and  emergency 
housing  for  industrial  workers. 
The  value  of  the  work  performed 
in  1942  was  $636  million,  practi- 
cally the  same  as  in  the  preceding 
year;  materials  used  cost  $325 
million;     and     the     salaries     and 


20 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


i 


wages  bill  was  $262  million. 

Canada  is  particularly  blessed 
in  having  an  abundance  of  read- 
ily-available water  power.  The 
country's  total  hydraulic  develop- 
ment is  over  10  million  horse- 
power, making  Canada  the  second 
nation  in  the  world  in  this  res- 
pect. In  the  12  months  ended 
August  (1944),  electric  power 
generated  totalled  40,802  million 
kwh. 

Our  wartime  transportation 
job  has  been  phenomenal.  Car 
loadings  were  up  59  percent  in 
1943  over  1939,  transit  passengers 
up  90  percent,  bus  passengers  up 
37  percent,  and  air  passengers  up 
95  percent.  All  of  this  grew  out. 
of  the  work  of  pioneers  who  faced 
the  need  for  transport  in  an  ex- 
ceedingly difficult  terrain.  The 
railways  that  opened  up  the  vast 
hinterland  were  laid  through 
trackless  wilderness,  over  tundra, 
and  through  mountain  passes. 
Men  of  vision  and  daring  created 
in  Canada  the  world's  greatest 
air  freight  business.  Canals  open- 
ed up  nearly  2,000  miles  of  water- 
ways, and  provided  cheap  trans- 
portation for  bulky  and  heavy 
freight,  for  wheat,  iron  ore,  and 
hundreds  of  products  of  the  east 
and  west.  When  sails  were  furl- 
ed as  steam  usurped  the  world's 
waterways,  it  was  Canada  which 
built  the  first  vessel  to  cross  the 
Atlantic    wholly     steam-powered. 


Railway  construction  began  in 
1835  with  a  little  16-mile  link  be- 
tween Laprairie  and  St.  Johns, 
Quebec,  but  the  first  great  period 
of  building  was  in  the  1850's, 
when  the  Grand  Trunk  and  the 
Great  Western  thrust  their  tracks 
westward.  The  Intercolonial  and 
the  Canadian  Pacific  contributed 
to  another  period  of  rapid  expan- 
sion in  the  70's  and  80's.  Between 
1900  and  1917  the  Grand  Trunk 
Pacific,  the  National  Transcon- 
tinental, and  the  Canadian  Nor- 
thern were  built.  Today,  Cana- 
da has  42,400  miles  of  track.  Only 
the  United  States  and  Russia 
have  longer  mileages  in  opera- 
tion. 

All  the  history  and  develop- 
ment of  Canada  add  up  to  a  big 
postwar  problem,  because  all 
have  led  to  great  and  ever  in- 
creasing dependence  upon  foreign 
trade.  This  Dominion  is  emerg- 
ing as  one  of  the  important  sur- 
plus-producing nations,  and  will 
be,  after  the  war,  one  of  the  three 
or  four  creditor  countries.  Out 
of  a  total  of  $9  billion  of  war 
goods  which  Canada  produced 
from  the  beginning  of  the  war  up 
to  the  end  of  1944,  between  $6 
and  $7  billion  has  been  made 
available  for  the  use  of  other 
United  Nations.  In  fact,  with  only 
about  one-half  of  one  per  cent  of 
the  world's  population,  Canada 
has    stepped    into    third   place   a- 


MARCH,  1945 


21 


mong  trading  nations,  with  a 
combined  import-export  business 
in  the  12  months  ended  in  Sep- 
tember of  $5,200  million.  Exports 
are  currently  well  over  the  $3 
billion  a  year  mark,  compared 
with  $l1/4  billion  before  the  war 
at   comparable  price   levels. 

At  home,  there  are  more  than 
1  million  people  engaged  in  dir- 
ect and  indirect  war  employment, 
and  of  these  about  800,000  are 
manufacturing  war  equipment. 
Food  shipped  from  Canada  to 
Great  Britain  last  year  was  215 
percent  of  the  1939  total,  to  Af- 
rica and  Asia  569  percent,  and 
to  the  United  States  259  percent. 


Canada  has  paid  cash  for  all  she 
has  bought  from  the  United 
States  since  war  began  in  1939, 
and  has  taken  no  Lend-Lease.  In 
fact,  Canada  has  given  to  other 
nations  under  her  own  version  of 
Lend-Lease,  nearly  $4  billion 
worth  of  goods,  greater  propor- 
tionately than  any  other  nation. 

That  is  Canada.  In  population, 
she  is  a  small  nation;  in  territory, 
she  is  vast;  in  natural  resources 
and  industrial  development,  she 
is  next  to  the  United  Kingdom. 
the  United  States,  and  the  U.S. 
S.R.  Her  days  of  technological 
development  and  economic  ex- 
pansion have  only  just  begun  .  . 


A  Scientist  on  Politics 


it  PROFESSOR  A.  V.  HILL,  famous  scientist  who  represents  Cam- 
bridge University  in  the  House  of  Commons,  will  retire  from  Parlia- 
ment at  the  general  election  next  year.  He  is  a  member  of  the  scien- 
tific advisory  committee  of  the  war  cabinet  and  has  done  a  good  deal 
of  research  work  on  Britain's  'secret  weapon'— radio  location. 

'He  is  one  of  the  commanding  intelligences   of  Britain   today,'   his 
scientific  friends  say. 

When  asked  for  his  verdict  on  the  House  of  Commons,  of  which 
he  has  been  a  member  since  the  start  of  the  war,  he  said  he  was 
struck  by  the  extraordinary  lack  of  scientists  in  it.  The  scientific 
approach  to  national  problems  rarely  got  a  hearing.  There  were  plenty 
of  lawyers  but  few  engineers.  In  the  House  of  Lords  it  was  the  same. 
But  there  were  36  bishops  there — all  of  them  life-peers. 

'I  have  enjoyed  the  House  of  Commons,'  Professor  Hill  sums  up, 
'but  I  must  now  get  my  brains  functioning  again.  I  haven't  used  them 
for  the  last  five  and  a  half  years!'  — Vancouver  Daily  Province 


22 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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What  Price  Security? 


Remember  the  relief  rolls,  the  breadlines,  the  freight  trains,  the 
destruction  of  food  and  clothing.  That  was  but  part  of  the  price 
we  paid  while  vainly  struggling  to  maintain  controls  over  a  physical 
environment  for   which  those  controls  were   never  devised. 


WHY  is  it  that  with  the  im- 
mense productivity  today 
in  North  America  we  fail  to  ar- 
rive at  any  decision  upon  tomor- 
row's security?  Could  it  be  that 
our  technology  has  grown  to  man- 
hood while  our  social  structure 
has  lagged  behind? 

If  we  are  to  understand  our 
present  North  American  civiliza- 
tion and  the  problems  it  faces, 
we  must  recognize  certain  basic 
facts.  Among  them  is  the  know- 
ledge that  North  America  con- 
stitutes approximately  19  percent 
of  the  world's  land  area;  that  it 
has  over  50  percent  of  the  world's 
known  resources;  but  that  it  sup- 
ports only  9  percent  of  the 
world's  population. 

The  penetration  and  technical 
progression  of  the  white  race 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
is  an  example  of  an  individualism 
which  was  never  possible  in  the 
agrarian,  overpopulated,  re- 
source-impoverished areas  of 
Europe  and  Asia.  That  indivi- 
dualism took  full  advantage  of 
the  beneficence  of  nature  on  this 
Continent,  and  since  the  days  of 
the  slaughter  of  the  buffalo  herds 

MARCH,  1945 


successive  generations  have  con- 
tinued a  policy  of  despoiling  the 
Continent. 

This  new  environment  of  North 
America  produced  a  less  'inhibit- 
ed' people.  The  inventions  of 
James  Watt  and  others  were  a 
'natural'  to  this  Continent,  for 
science  and  inventions  were  dis- 
covered to  be  not  only  a  boon  to 
mankind  but  likewise  a  boon  to 
'private  enterprise.'  Little  in  the 
way  of  technology  has  been 
brought  to  the  New  World  from 
the  Old;  but  much  has  been 
brought  in  Old  World  traditions 
and  philosophy,  and  adaptation  to 
the  environment  of  the  New 
World  forced  many  radical  de- 
partures from  these  traditions  up- 
on North  Americans  during  the 
next  150  years. 

In  a  short  time  individualism 
and  free  enterprise  in  North 
America  were  striding  far  ahead 
of  Old  World  concepts.  The  old 
way  of  life  was  giving  place  to 
a  new;  old  traditions  and  customs 
were  making  way  for  technologi- 
cal progression  as  dictated  by  the 
new  environment.  Seventy  cen- 
turies of  scarcity,  privation,  and 


23 


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handtool  methods  of  operation 
were  being  rolled  ruthlessly 
aside  as  a  new  generation  adapted 
itself  to  an  environment  which 
was  so  conducive  to  technologi- 
cal advancement. 

Social  progress  in  North  Am- 
erica is  dictated  by  technological 
progression  and  the  application  of 
energy  conversion  to  the  way  we 
live.  This  social  progress  has  de- 
veloped as  an  unforeseen  bypro- 
duct of  the  greatest  melee  of 
plundering  ever  practised  on  this 
earth.  Regardless  of  the  reason 
for  its  arrival  it  is  today  the 
dominant  factor  in  our  lives,  and 
dictates  that  we  live  in  strict  ac- 
cord with  the  technological  pro- 
gression which  is  forcing  this 
social  change  upon  us,  or  face 
disaster. 

This  high-energy  social  mech- 
anism of  ours  is  a  comparatively 
new  thing  on  this  globe.  It  pre- 
sents certain  problems  and  re- 
quirements of  operation  that  no 
social  mechanism  has  ever  been 
faced  with  before,  for  our  prob- 
lems are  a  result  of  our  methods 
of  doing  work.  They  are  physi- 
cal problems;  they  are  factual  and 
they  are  measurable,  but  we  are 
facing  them  with  the  abstract 
thinking  of  the  fifteenth  century 
while  being  forced  to  continue 
to  operate  somehow,  knowing 
that  if  we  allow  things  to  stop, 
they  may  never  again  get  start- 


ed. Confusion  is  more  predomin- 
ant today  than  ever  before  and 
will  continue  to  increase  if  we 
endeavor  to  reconcile  a  conflict 
between  the  abstract  ideologies 
of  the  past  and  the  physical  laws 
of  science  of  today. 

Today  is  the  Power  Age,  and 
we  must  realize  that  this  Power 
Age  can  only  operate  upon  scien- 
tific principles.  The  dictates  of  a 
physical  world  and  a  physical 
mechanism  are  no  respecters  of 
abstract  ideals,  opinions,  beliefs, 
likes,  or  dislikes  and  yet  we  con- 
tinue to  impede  the  greater  ap- 
plication of  science  to  our  social 
operation  because  we  fail  to  ap- 
preciate the  vital  necessity  of  a 
technologically  operated  econo- 
my. The  'price'  of  security  and 
abundance  will  be  found  in  the 
physical  solution  of  these  prob- 
lems, alone,  no  matter  how  that 
'price'  may  be  adorned  to  give  it 
the  appearance  of  an  idealistic 
approach  by  the  upholders  of  our 
current  system  of  futility. 

A  drastic  change  for  many  of 
us?  Most  assuredly,  for  most 
people  try  to  escape  from  some- 
thing new,  albeit  that  'something 
new'  is  dictated  by  social  neces- 
sity. We  are  paying  a  terrible 
price  in  wasted  lives  and  wasted 
resources  for    our    stubbornness. 

A  few  years  ago  every  person 
living  in  North  America  existed 
in  a  paroxysm  of  social  insecuri- 


24 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


R£n§ 


#£ 


ti.* 


■ 


ty,  while  the  youth  of  our  Con- 
tinent were  particularly  victim- 
ized. On  December  7,  1938,  the 
research  bureau  of  the  Canadian 
Youth  Congress  gave  the  follow- 
ing figures:  '400,000  Canadians 
between  the  ages  of  15  and  30 
were  unemployed.'  The  same 
young  men  that  rode  the  freight 
trains,  who  were  bums  and  out- 
casts of  a  social  system  that 
blighted  their  lives  because  it 
could  not  employ  them  at  a  profit, 
are  now  in  our  Armed  Forces 
fighting  against  fascism  abroad. 

Remember  the  relief  rolls,  the 
breadlines,  the  freight  trains,  the 
destruction  of  food  and  clothing, 
the  poverty  and  malnutrition? 
That  was  but  part  of  the  price 
we  paid  while  vainly  struggling 
to  maintain  controls  over  a  physi- 
cal environment  for  which  those 
controls  were  never  devised.  No 
machine  can  be  operated  success- 
fully except  as  dictated  by  its  de- 
sign. In  the  same  way  no  struggle 
to  perpetuate  an  archaic  set  of 
social  controls  over  the  dictates 
of  physical,  twentieth-century 
North  America  can  succeed,  and 
provide  security  for  the  citizens 
of  North  America. 

Our  Continental  mechanism  is 
forcing  the  adoption  of  new  con- 
trols in  order  to  continue  opera- 
tion. For  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  mankind  the  applica- 
tion of  technology  and  energy  to 

MARCH,  1945 


natural  resources  has  greatly  dis- 
turbed man's  century-old  rela- 
tionship to  his  environment.  It 
is  a  relationship  that  has  been 
static  throughout  the  7,000  years 
of  recorded  history,  and  it  is  im- 
pinging most  markedly  upon  the 
North  American  Continent. 

Until  the  application  of  power 
to  the  method  of  doing  work  was 
installed  during  the  last  century 
and  a  half,  man  throughout  the 
world  was  only  able  to  convert 
between  2,000  and  3,000  kilogram 
calories  of  energy  per  day — the 
food  he  could  consume  turned 
by  his  intricate  chemical  pro- 
cesses into  work  through  his  own 
muscles.  Even  today  for  the 
majority  of  the  world,  this  still 
holds  true.  But  in  North  Ameri- 
ca we  utilized  falling  water,  coal, 
oil,  natural  gas,  and  other  fuels 
to  do  this  work  for  us,  and  by 
1937  the  conversion  of  energy 
per  capita  per  day  had  reached 
the  figure  of  167,000  kilogram 
calories.  No  other  land  area  in 
the  world  has  this  energy  con- 
version to  contend  with.  No 
other  land  mass  has  the  natural 
resources  per  head  of  population 
that  North  America  is  blessed 
with.  No  other  country  or  con- 
tinent today  is  faced  with  this 
problem. 

If  we  fail  to  adjust  our  meth- 
ods of  social  control  to  conform 
to  the  physical   requirements   of 


25 


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this  high-energy  civilization  we 
can  look  forward  to  economic 
chaos. 

That  there  is  no  alternative 
under  this  method  of  social  op- 
eration must  be  apparent  to  every 
North  American  upon  analysing 
the  facts  that  Technocracy  has 
been    placing    before    them    for 


years.  There  is  no  guarantee  of 
security  for  any  North  American 
unless  we  decide  that  our  present 
method  of  social  operation  is  out- 
moded, has  outlived  its  useful- 
ness, and  must  be  replaced  by  a 
social  technic  that  is  scientifically 
geared  to  the  present  technologi- 
cal operation  of  our  physical 
mechanism.        — Milton  Wildfong 


The  Future  of  Farming 


*  REGINA,  Jan.  19— Howard  R.  Tolley,  chief  of  the  Bureau  of 
Agricultural  Economics  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture, said  last  night  that  Canada  and  United  States  would  have  to  take 
appropriate  domestic  action  to  maintain  a  high  level  of  non-agricultural 
employment  after  the  war  if  farmers  in  both  nations  were  to  maintain 
production  at  high  levels  and  were  to  be  assured  of  markets  for  their 
products  at  reasonable  prices. 

'In  addition  we  will  need  to  co-operate  with  other  nations  of  the 
world  to  the  end  that  an  appropriate  amount  of  international  trade 
can  be  maintained,'  he  said. 

A  recent  study  in  the  U.  S.  showed  that  'with  full  employment 
our  post-war  agricultural  problems  would  be  manageable,  but  as  the 
number  of  unemployed  increases  the  adjustment  difficulties  not  only 
only  increase  but  multiply'  and  'I  am  sure  that  the  results  are  as 
full  of  meaning  for  your  farmers  as  they  are  for  ours.' 

With  moderate  agricultural  technological  advances,  U.  S.  farmers 
could  produce  in  1950  on  20,000,000  acres  less  crop-land  than  they  used 
in  1943  enough  to  supply  a  domestic  market  based  on  employment 
for  all  who  wanted  work  and  $150,000,000,000  national  income  as  well 
as  to  meet  the  needs  of  an  export  market  twice  as  large  as  that  just 
before  the  war.  Cash  income  from  farm  marketings  would  be  about 
$17,000,000,000,  about  $2,000,000,000  less  than  in  1943. 

— Canadian  Press 


26 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


N 


■ 


■  I 


^'.V. 


JfSfi(B**< 


Spineless  Apathy  and  Flabby  Inertia 

We  find  the  people  of  North  America,  conditioned  to  inaction  by 
years  of  irrelevant  behavior,  bogged  in  the  mire  of  traditionalism, 
and  betrayed  by  those  to  whom  they  look  for  leadership,  sitting  in 
resigned  and  mushy  inertness. 


THE  greatest  obstruction  to 
the  establishment  of  a  new 
social  order  on  the  Continent  of 
North  America  is  the  gelatinous 
apathy  and  inertia  of  the  major 
proportion  of  its  population.  We 
have  the  personnel,  we  have  the 
resources,  we  have  the  equipment 
to  give  us  a  new  world  beyond 
the  imaginings  of  even  the  most 
Utopian  dreamer.  With  the  direc- 
tion that  Technocracy  Incorpor- 
ated can  give,  plus  the  coordin- 
ated action  of  the  people,  an  end 
can  be  made  to  privation  and  in- 
security on  this  Continent.  We 
can  bid  farewell  to  days  of  ig- 
nominous  toil  and  sleepless  nights 
of  worried  scheming.  This  new 
economic  and  social  state  (science 
and  technology  tell  us)  must  be 
established  here  or  we  shall  per- 
ish. 

Yet  the  great  mass  of  people 
refuse  to  take  seriously  the 
warnings  of  those  trained  and 
competent  to  judge  the  very 
grave  condition  of  our  affairs,  and 
either  shrug  them  away  as  Cass- 
andra-like prognostications  of 
woe,  or  sit  and  wait  for  some 
mythical  'George'  to  right  matters 
for  them. 

MARCH,  1945 


The  flabby  assumption  that 
we,  the  people  of  this  Continent, 
can  do  nothing  to  remedy  this 
state  of  confusion  is  fostered  by 
the  political  institutions  that 
are  today  the  ill-founded  pride 
and  deeply-rooted  curse  of  all 
North  Americans.  The  people  of 
Canada  and  the  United  States 
have  been  cleverly  conditioned  to 
believe  that  they  have  only  to 
put  the  right  collection  of  poli- 
ticians into  governmental  office 
to  receive  all  the  economic  bene- 
fits they  need  and  desire.  Do  the 
electors  really  imagine  that  a 
body  of  men  chosen  for  the 
effulgence  of  their  platform  man- 
ner or  the  fruitiness  of  their  bank 
accounts  can  know  anything  of 
the  specific,  technological  prob- 
lem which  presents  itself  for 
solution  today?  Or  do  they  expect 
some  occult  omniscience  to  des- 
cend like  a  benison  on  these  chal- 
ices made  holy  by  popular  sanc- 
tion? The  production  of  our  new 
Continental  wealth  and  its  distri- 
bution cannot  be  accomplished 
either  by  mysticism  or  chicanery. 

Somewhere,  somehow,  some- 
time, the  electors  still  hope  a 
miracle  will    happen.     This  mir- 


27 


Hi 

■| 

1  1 

.  tt  1 

■ 

.  ■ ; 

' 


jlftfti 


ifcrePH 

■P^ 

aCTfWSfcS 

^^^BvT^tfM 

tiafimm 

s4&3m 

■ 

|«y 

Lral 

js| 

■ 

H^Sy^v 

>*v  1 

1  ■  ■ 

fyr 

t  *S- 

m  4it~. 

1  a  *»* 

^Hi^H 

vyfl 

Sh 

^H 

<&* 

ibhsm 

ffi^v 

mKp 

'■  H  1  1 

^L 

naur 

w*s$i& 

1 

T^Tm 

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* 

a&BttM 

m 

ilk] 

3fc        .1   I   CV 

■a 

■u 

&*3fa  ^^HH  So1     yfs 


acle  is  the  resolution  of  their  eco- 
nomic woes  plus  the  maintenance 
of  all  those  traditional  institutions 
so  precious  to  their  hearts.  'What 
was  good  enough  for  us  and  our 
fathers  is  good  enough  for  our 
children'  is  their  cry.  But  they 
fail  to  realize  that  the  meagre 
benefits  enjoyed  by  their  ances- 
tors have  been  superseded  by  a 
plethora  of  everything  necessary 
to  a  life  of  security  and  abund- 
ance for  every  person  on  this 
Continent. 

The  solution  of  the  problems 
of  the  simple,  static  world  of  the 
past  7,000  years  was  a  relatively 
easy  matter.  The  millions  toiled 
so  that  the  few  might  take  their 
ease.  'The  rich  man  in  his  castle 
and  the  poor  man  at  his  gate'  was 
an  arrangement  accepted  as  of 
Divine  ordinance.  In  those  days 
such  a  state  of  matters  was  an 
economic  necessity.  Today,  the 
deification  of  toil  is  ludicrous  and 
class  distinctions  are  in  the  realm 
of  the  absurd.  Modern  tech- 
nology and  power  are  fast  elimi- 
nating the  necessity  for  human 
labor.  They  have  given  us  a  dy- 
namic changing  world  which  can 
be  controlled  only  by  those  who 
have  full  knowledge  of  the  phy- 
sical  operations   involved. 

The  moralistic  'whys'  that  have 
dictated  action  in  the  past  must 
give  way  to  the  scientific  and 
engineering  approach  of  'How  to 


do  what  and  when.'  Meanwhile 
the  miracle  fails  to  happen  and 
the  ill-advised  and  frantic  patch- 
ing of  our  governmental  tinkers 
goes  on  apace.  The  failure  of 
this  gigantic  caulking  to  save  the 
foundering  hulk  of  our  economic 
ship  has  only  added  to  the  be- 
wilderment, and  increased  the  be- 
fuddlement  of  the  entire  popula- 
tion. 

This  bewilderment,  this  gen- 
eral unawareness  of  the  immedi- 
acy and  gravity  of  our  problem, 
is  further  increased  by  the  care- 
ful indifference  exhibited  by  our 
so-called  intellectual  and  spiritual 
leaders.  By  the  aloof  superiority, 
too,  of  our  Right  People.  These 
persons  have  drunk  deep  at  the 
Pierian  well  of  scholastic  enlight- 
enment afforded  by  the  higher 
institutions  of  learning  of  this 
Continent  and  their  quaffings 
have  filled  them  with  a  spurious 
importance. 

Among  them  there  are  those 
who  take  a  snobbish  joy  in  being 
in  the  forefront  of  any  esoteric 
movement  that  will  preserve 
their  sense  of  Olympian  remote- 
ness from  the  world  of  realities, 
a  harsh  world  and  vulgar  in 
which  they  hope  never  to  become 
embroiled.  They  go  whoring  af- 
ter intangible  preciosities  but 
when  brought  fact  to  face  with 
physical  realities  their  pitiable 
impotence  is  revealed.    The  facts 


28 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■u--a . 


■BE 


■     m 

m  Kflfi 


I 


of  the  crude  physical  world  a- 
round  them,  facts  which  Techno- 
crats present  to  them  with  such 
unblushing  directness,  they  have 
not  the  integrity  to  face.  In  them 
lies  a  threat  to  their  present  lotus- 
eating  existences.  The  minds  of 
most  of  them  are  too  turgid  with 
the  fumes  of  their  own  egotistic 
incense  to  catch  the  implications 
of  those  threats  to  their  beatific 
calm. 

Others  do  realize  to  what  cata- 
clysm we  are  heading.  But  for 
years  they  have  dodged  realities 
by  escaping  into  their  own  pri- 
vate worlds  of  fine-spun  abstrac- 
tions. Emasculated  by  such  wit- 
less inactivity  they  have  now 
nothing  but  their  barren  Speng- 
lerian  pessimism  to  offer  a  be- 
fogged people.  For  themselves, 
when  the  deluge  overtakes  them, 
they  think  no  doubt  to  die  with 
a  gesture,  a  l'ancien  regime.  The 
debacle  they  must  eventually  face 
is  unlikely  to  be  either  as  roman- 
tic or  as  expeditious  as  the 
guillotine,  and  will  permit  few 
fine  posturings.  And  this  is  the 
probability  to  which  we  are  now 
heading,   my  gallant  ones! 

Then  we  come  to  these  dis- 
dainful others,  our  Right  People. 
Their  finicking  susceptibilities 
are  shocked  by  the  facts  which 
Technocracy   wastes   no   time   in 


dressing-up  for  them.  True,  we 
are  facing  a  major  catastrophe 
but  still  one  must  consider  'Who's 
Who.'  These  quibblers  may  ad- 
mit, albeit  somewhat  grudgingly, 
that  Technocracy  has  the  'right 
idea'  or  that  they  are  in  'sym- 
pathy' with  us;  but  because 
among  Technocrats  they  do  not 
find  their  bridge-playing  con- 
freres, their  back-slapping  service 
club  buddies,  or  the  dilettantes  of 
their  literary  circles,  then  they 
will  have  no  traffic  with  us. 

So,  we  find  the  people  of  the 
Continent,  conditioned  to  inac- 
tion by  years  of  irrelevant  be- 
haviour, bogged  in  the  mire  of 
traditionalism,  and  betrayed  by 
those  to  whom  they  look  for 
leadership,  sitting  in  resigned  and 
mushy  inertness.  Vaguely  con- 
scious of  the  hell  of  a  mess  they 
are  in,  they  supinely  refuse  to 
lift  a  finger  to  remedy  their  mis- 
erable  situation. 

The  march  of  events  on  this 
Continent,  a  progression  which 
cannot  be  halted,  will  very  soon 
catch  up  with  these  spineless  mil- 
lions. When  it  does,  God  help 
them! 

Must  all  that  science  and  en- 
gineering have  done  to  free  us  be 
lost?  And  all  for  this  flabby  lack 
of  spunk?        — Dorothy  Fearman 


Editor's  Note  :   This  article  was  written  before  World  War  II,  but  it  is  as  pertinent 
today  as  it  was  in  1938. 


MARCH,  1945 


29 


H 


,  '  •»  I     ■ 
■  .      ••»■•• 


^■HG 


$h^ 

>.*-- 


^m 


^^m 
H 


GfiuHs. 


1  I  I 
I  '*„* " 


3Ra 


■■91 


wl 


The  Elimination  of  Leisure 


Leisure  was  the  hallmark  of  freedom  in  the  days  of  scarcity.  It 
made  the  distinction  between  the  master  and  the  slave.  When 
abundance  and  the  Technate  of  the  New  America  are  with  us,  both 
toil  and   leisure   will  have   been   eradicated. 


LEISURE,  in  all  the  ages  past, 
has  been  regarded  as  the  due 
recompense  for  toil.  After  the 
brethren  have  labored  let  them 
be  called  to  refreshment  and  ease. 
Leisure  is  described  in  the  stan- 
dard dictionaries  as  freedom 
from  occupation  and  employment, 
or  as  vacant  time.  Leisure  has 
thus  become  the  antonym  for  hu- 
man labor.  As  such,  it  has  come 
to  be  accepted  as  the  crowning 
guerdon  which  culminates  the 
zenith  of  the  years  of  arduous 
travail. 

The  question  of  what  is  to  be 
done  with  the  envisaged  mass 
leisure,  implied  in  the  continual 
and  the  increasing  use  of  the 
machine,  is  one  that  keeps  awake 
at  nights  those  who  seek  to  pal- 
liate the  evils  of  our  present  soc- 
ial conventions.  The  awesome  ca- 
tastrophes that  in  their  befuddled 
opinions  await  the  human  race 
under  such  conditions  as  appear 
to  be  arising,  affright  them.  They 
seek,  with  feverish  haste,  new 
ideas  and  fresh  variations  of  the 
old  methods,  that  will  somehow 


Reprinted     from      Technocracy,      A-14, 
Oct.   1938,  by   kind  permission   of  CHQ. 


maintain  the  human  beings  of 
this  Continent  free  from  the  in- 
sidious dangers  of  copious  leis- 
ure. They  tremble  and  shudder 
at  the  very  thought  of  the  mis- 
chief that  the  Evil  One  may  find 
for  so  many  idle  hands. 

The  philosophers  of  the  by- 
gone days  have  disagreed  as  to 
whether  man  fell  from  his  high 
estate  or  merely  failed  to  climb 
to  that  dizzy  elevation.  They 
were,  however,  agreed  that  the 
sole  path  by  which  he  could  reach 
the  high  moral  state  that  was 
rightfully  his  could  be  travelled 
only  by  strenuous  physical  labor, 
coupled  with  a  strict  avoidance 
of  all  forms  of  pleasurable  acti- 
vity and  an  equally  strict  obser- 
vance of  the  peculiar  habits,  man- 
ners, and  customs  enjoyed  by  the 
philosopher  and  meticulously 
'divine  guidance.' 

As  manual  labor  is  of  the  es- 
sence of  scarcity  and  as  scarcity 
was  omnipresent  in  the  world  as 
the  philosophers  knew  it,  they 
dogmatically  asserted  the  belief 
that  idleness  or  cessation  from 
physical  labor  was  sure  to  breed 
the  most  shockingly  degenerate 
habits — that  is,  of  course,  for  all 


30 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


m\ 

mam         HiTO 

H       fin 

Bn     HI 


those  born  to  human  toil,  for  ap- 
parently the  holders  of  vested 
interests  were  exempt.  So  sure 
of  this  were  they,  that  the  dogma 
of  the  teachings  they  engendered 
and  the  curriculums  of  the 
schools  they  dominated  were  all 
directed  toward  the  wonderful 
efficacy  of  human  toil  to  produce 
'absolute  goodness.'  It  is  to  be 
specifically  noted  that  no  philo- 
sopher is  reported  as  having 
taken  a  dose  of  his  own  medicine, 
as  in  general,  the  philosophers  be- 
longed to  the  most  leisured  of 
the  leisure  classes. 

Their  quaint  and  animistic 
superstition  of  the  'value'  of  work 
remains  with  us  today.  The  real- 
ly smart  chiselers  of  the  past, 
who  had  been  astute  enough  to 
acquire  sufficient  of  the  spoils  of 
scarcity  to  emancipate  themselves 
from  human  toil,  were  aware  that 
this  morality  of  work  was  just 
plain  baloney.  These  chiselers 
were,  however,  far  too  crafty  in 
their  Machiavellism  to  let  this  be- 
come commonly  known.  It  would 
have  been  the  quintessence  of 
stupidity  to  have  killed  the  goose 
that  laid  the  golden  eggs.  Manual 
labor  was  essential  in  that  era  of 
scarcity  for  the  production  of 
even  a  partial  sufficiency.  The 
supply  of  suckers,  who  believed 
wholeheartedly  in  the  'value'  of 
work,  was  never  at  any  time  too 
great. 


When  human  labor  was  the 
sole  means  of  producing  any  and 
all  goods  and  services,  it  was  es- 
sential to  the  continued  exist- 
ence of  the  human  race  that  the 
process  of  applying  human  ener- 
gy to  production  should  provide 
leisure  only  for  the  few.  The 
great  majority  started  to  labor  at 
a  very  early  age.  The  hours  of 
labor  were  from  dawn  to  dusk. 
For  the  endless  tasks  to  be  ac- 
complished by  the  slow  processes 
of  handicraft  the  daylight  hours 
were  all  too  few.  Yet,  without 
extraneous  energy,  it  was  im- 
practicable to  work  once  the  sun 
had  set;  so  the  human  being  emu- 
lated the  chicken  and  retired  to 
roost  when  night  fell. 

The  pleasurable  sensations  of 
the  human  toiler  of  these  days 
were  centered  round  the  prac- 
tices of  sleeping,  eating,  drinking, 
and  propagating  his  species.  All 
the  customs,  folklore,  and  tradi- 
tions of  that  agelong  period  re- 
volved around  those  forms  of  en- 
joyment mingled  and  redolent 
with  the  heavy  odor  of  unwashed, 
exhausted,  and  toilworn  human 
beings.  The  end  of  human  labor 
only  came  when  the  individual 
was  incapable  of  continued  exer- 
tion. This  last  stage  was  normal- 
ly a  state  of  physical  exhaustion, 
usually  followed  by  an  early  de- 
mise. Leisure,  even  such  leisure 
as  we  know  today,  was  unknown 


MARCH,  1945 


31 


to  the  great  majority  of  the  popu- 
lace only  a  few  decades  back  in 
history. 

The  ritual  of  work  for  uplift's 
sake  will  be  found  embodied  in 
the  folklore  of  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries.  The  lab- 
orer was  becoming  restive  and 
insurgent.  The  use  of  extran- 
eous energy  was  already  affecting 
the  habits  of  the  people.  A  new 
concept  of  the  morality  of  work 
was  in  demand.  This  was  inher- 
ent in  the  philosophic  concepts  of 
equality  and  the  rights  of  man 
that  were  engrossing  the  minds 
of  the  leisured  thinkers.  The 
realization  that  the  machine  could 
eliminate  human  toil  was  becom- 
ing evident  to  a  small  degree. 
Work  for  work's  sake  was  losing 
its  efficacy  and  failing  in  conse- 
quence to  maintain  the  supply  of 
willing  laborers. 

To  preserve  the  ancient  cus- 
toms and  to  ensure  a  continuous 
flow  of  human  labor  into  the 
marts  of  the  producing  countries, 
the  doctrine  of  the  'value'  of  hu- 
man labor  in  raising  the  spiritual 
level  of  mankind  was  elevated  to 
the  position  of  authoritarian  dog- 
ma. Work,  from  being  merely  a 
necessity,  was  prompted  to  being 
a  virtue.  Leisure  was  for  those 
who  earned  the  crown  of  that 
virtue,  as  is  evidenced  by  the 
literature  of  that  period,  which 
extolled  those  who  had  succeed- 


ed in  amassing  monetary  wealth 
by  'unremitting  toil.'  Every 
ploughboy  could  become  presi- 
dent if  only  he  devoted  his  entire 
life  to  unceasing  human  effort. 
The  guerdon  of  that  labor  would 
be  the  privilege  of  leisure;  the 
just  reward  for  the  arduous  years 
gone  by. 

The  ancient  Euro-Asiatic  cus- 
tom of  hereditary  descent  and  in- 
heritance gave  to  the  sons, 
daughters  and  lineal  offspring  of 
these  heroes  of  ceaseless  travail, 
the  same  rights  and  privileges 
that  their  fathers  had.  They  too 
were  deemed  fit  to  wear  the 
crown  bestowed  by  the  goddess 
of  human  sweat.  Leisure  was 
thus  held  to  be  the  prerogative 
of  those  who  had  arrogated  a 
position  of  superiority  to  them- 
selves on  account  of  the  debts 
that  were  owed  to  them.  Expand- 
ing production  of  goods  due  to 
the  new  uses  of  extraneous  en- 
ergy produced  a  new  crop  of 
leisured  people.  This  was  in  ac- 
cord with  the  best  Greek  tradi- 
tion, since  the  culture  of  Athens 
was  founded  on  the  leisure  of  a 
few  slave  owners.  The  Greek 
production  of  goods  had  been 
small,  hence  the  leisured  group 
was  small  too.  The  new  produc- 
tion of  the  so-called  civilized 
countries  was  large  and  the  leis- 
ured groups  were  corresponding- 
ly large.  Despite  the  entry  of  the 


32 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


.».  »  A 


WTO  £ 


extraneous  energy  derived  from 
coal,  the  wonderful  sagacity  of 
the  Greek  philosophers  appeared 
to  be  upheld. 

The  leisured  few.  in  their  mor- 
onity and  their  ignorance,  have 
always  misused  such  vacant  time 
as  they  have  possessed.  They 
have,  however,  held  that  leisure 
was  too  precious  a  gift  to  be  bes- 
towed on  the  common  herd.  If 
their  superiority  found  it  difficult 
to  handle  their  leisure,  they  were 
sure  that  difficulty  would  be 
overwhelming  for  those  who  had 
not  reached  the  sublime  heights 
of  culture.  This  fear  of  mass 
idleness  is  still  evident  in  the 
utterances  of  the  educated  ignor- 
amuses and  the  cultured  apes 
that  pontifically  dictate  to  the 
people  of  today.  Leisure  to  them 
has  always  been  a  means  of  dis- 
playing pecuniary  wealth  or  of 
maintaining  their  so-called  in- 
tellectual superiority.  They  are, 
however,  correct  in  the  assump- 
tion that  leisure  of  the  Price  Sys- 
tem order  is  essentially  the  privi- 
lege of  the  vested  interests.  It 
is  the  skunk-lily  of  civilization — 
beautiful  when  viewed  from  a 
distance  but  offensive  and  repel- 
lent when  physically  contacted. 

There  is  no  program  of  adult 
or  even  adolescent  leisure  that  is 
not  exploited  to  the  full  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Price  System. 
There  are  no  dance    halls,    ball 

MARCH,  1945 


iJoRI 


parks,  movies,  theatres,  nor  any 
places  of  amusement  or  entertain- 
ment, that  are  not  operated  for 
the  purpose  of  greater  transfer  of 
debt  certificates,  or  so  as  to  en- 
sure a  profitable  return  on  in- 
vestment, that  can  exist  under 
the  system.  Each  and  every  one 
of  them  is  a  centre  for  the  sale  of 
some  product  or  service.  Even 
those  which  are  ostensibly  de- 
voted to  physical  or  mental  cul- 
ture fall  into  the  same  category. 
The  employment  of  leisure 
hours  today  is  largely  a  matter 
of  what  one  can  afford.  Despite 
this,  even  those  who  can  afford 
anything  and  everything,  find 
therein  little  more  than  bore- 
dom, in  which  lechery,  insobriety, 
and  sensual  debauchery  figure 
largely.  The  columns  of  the 
press  will  confirm  this  statement. 
It  must  be  hard  for  a  Price  Sys- 
tem mind  to  conceive  of  any 
people  having  much  leisure  with- 
out at  the  some  time  conjuring 
up  the  picture  of  a  vast  industry 
of  the  familiar  corporation  type 
catering  for  the  public  and  super- 
vising where,  how,  and  when  they 
shall  play.  It  must  be  equally 
hard  for  such  an  individual  to 
imagine  what  forms  of  amuse- 
ment could  fill  such  leisure 
hours;  knowing  the  pastimes  of 
the  leisured  classes,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  usual  conclusion 
is   that   a   state   of   licentiousness 


33 


■ 


9PJ! 

MA 

m 

loft 

9? 

B5R 

% 

m 


a80»& 


"»-*.o 


m 


JOH 

grafts    §t*& 


5f£ 

•   mi 


■ 


would  be  inevitable. 

It  is  this  very  leisure  of  the 
majority  holders  of  the  debt 
claims  of  the  Price  System  that 
is  so  sought  after  by  the  radical, 
the  socialist,  and  the  communist. 
They  neither  envy  nor  despise 
the  leisured  classes;  they  seek  to 
emulate  them.  The  records  of 
the  daily  press,  once  more,  will 
bear  evidence  that  the  successful 
achievement  of  that  leisure  by 
the  leaders  of  the  left  wing  poli- 
tical groups  has  produced  an  al- 
most similar  boredom  to  that  en- 
joyed by  the  opulent.  The  fail- 
ure of  this  leisure  to  bring  any- 
thing but  the  nausea  of  satiety, 
the  revulsion  of  repletion,  and 
the  despondency  of  the  phobist 
is  self  evident.  Yet,  despite  this 
evidence,  the  proletariat  clamor 
for  the  divine  right  to  commit 
hari-kari. 

This  division  of  the  spoils  of 
scarcity  is  but  a  delusion  and  a 
dementia.  The  rape  of  the  few 
rags  that  cover  the  nakedness  of 
the  so-called,  self-styled  rich 
should  leave  us  indifferent  and 
unconcerned  once  we  realize  the 
principles  of  an  era  of  abundance. 
The  moronity,  the  stupidity,  and 
the  want  of  originality  in  the  oc- 
cupations of  leisure  as  displayed 
by  those  who  possess  it  today, 
should  be  a  warning  to  us  that  the 
crock  of  gold  at  the  rainbow's 
foot  is  but  a  myth,  a  dream.  Must 


we  throw  aside  the  substance  of 
reality  to  grasp  vainly  at  the 
shadow  of  a  shadow?  What  is  this 
leisure  of  the  past  that  we  should 
seek  to  share  it? 

It  is  but  the  few  hours  in  which 
those  who  have  been  thrust  into 
the  seats  of  opulence  by  the  pres- 
sure of  fortuitous  circumstances 
seek  to  avoid  the  mortification  of 
their  thralldom.  It  is  but  a 
momentary  escape  from  human 
toil  and  can  exist  only  on  the 
basis  of  that  toil.  There  is  no 
leisure,  except  that  which  is 
derived  from  the  perspiration,  the 
degradation,  and  the  vitiation  en- 
gendered by  physical  exertion 
for  the  purposes  of  producing  the 
means  whereby  we  live. 

It  is  this  growing  failure  of  the 
morality  of  work  and  its  con- 
comitant leisure  that  has  pro- 
duced the  present  state  of  pessi- 
mism, the  concept  of  the  utter 
futility  of  human  endeavor,  and 
the  solemn  morbid  stupidity  that 
constitutes  the  culture  of  today. 
The  dilettantes,  the  virtuosos,  and 
the  critics  have  lost  their  sense 
of  humor.  They  have  forgotten 
their  childhood  and  lost  the  very 
knowledge  of  how  to  play.  The 
hopelessness  of  the  attempts  to 
utilize  what  leisure  there  is 
strikes  a  deep  note  of  despond- 
ency and  ill-omened  gloom  that 
pervades  and  is  echoed  by  the 
literature  of  the  present. 


34 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■  ■  ■ 


m 


H   lis 

%  I  I 


KHQniEc 


H9T 
m 

■■&■ 


The  decline  of  all  western  civi- 
lization is  the  theme  song  of  these 
exponents  of  this  cultural  leisure 
of  the  moment.  They  have  miss- 
ed the  path  of  progression,  they 
have  become  bewildered  in  a 
dark  and  gloomy  forest  of  their 
own  creation,  and  are  counselling 
suicide  as  the  sole  release  from 
demons  their  bemused  thoughts 
have  conjured  around  them.  The 
anthropomorphic  ideologies  and 
the  derived  concepts  have  such  a 
strong  hold  on  them  that  they 
cannot  find  a  way  to  escape  the 
Laocoonian  coils.  Fear  of  the  un- 
known forces  them  to  prefer  the 
stagnation  of  inertia. 

Technological  advancement  on 
this  Continent  has  been  so  great 
that  the  situation  in  regard  to  the 
necessity  for  manual  labor  has 
completely  changed.  We  no  long- 
er find  ourselves  in  a  position 
where  human  toil  is  offset  to 
some  degree  by  leisure  hours.  We 
have  arrived  at  a  point  wherein, 
no  matter  what  we  do,  human 
toil  is  passing  from  the  scene.  A 
condition  has  arisen  in  which  the 
need  for  human  toil  as  a  means 
of  making  a  livelihood  is  fast  be- 
coming an  anachronism. 

Every  day,  the  list  of  those  who 
toil  no  more  is  becoming  greater 
and  greater.  Like  Solomon  in 
all  his  glory,  and  the  lilies  of  the 
field:  the  millions  who  have  been 
engulfed   by   the   relief  rolls   toil 


not,  neither  do  they  spin.  The 
assumption  that  work  is  a  sacred 
virtue,  and  that  without  physical 
labor  or  human  toil  the  individual 
becomes  derelict,  degraded,  de- 
based, and  demoralized,  is  being 
proven  by  empirical  observation 
to  be  utterly  false  and  unfounded. 

Labor  is  no  longer  scarce.  It 
has  become  so  abundant  as  to  be 
almost  unsaleable.  The  leisure 
of  the  unemployed  has  created  a 
new  problem  which  the  old  philo- 
sophies cannot  solve.  This  prob- 
lem has  created  a  new  crop  of 
despondency  howlers,  a  new  gal- 
axy of  the  prophets  of  doom. 
Everywhere  is  evident  the  failure 
to  grasp  the  fundamentals  of  the 
new  life  that  are  all  about  us. 
The  editorial  writers,  the  col- 
umnists, and  the  economists  cling 
dismally  to  the  wreckage  of  the 
old  life  that  was.  They  are  but 
graveyard  ghouls  moaning  and 
mourning  for  the  mouldered  re- 
mains that  lie  in  the  dimming 
past. 

The  dogma  of  the  morality  of 
work  has  convinced  many  of 
those  on  relief  that  they  are  in- 
deed lost  souls.  The  failure  of 
the  concept  of  leisure  to  provide 
any  escape  from  this  fear  has 
rendered  the  outlook  of  the  re- 
cipient of  Continental  charity  one 
of  utter  hopelessness.  This  hope- 
less outlook  is  reflected  in  the 
viewpoint  and  the  opinions  of  the 


— 


r&« 


TLvKaL 


MARCH,  1945 


35 


>J  .Jfc,  1 

:£mj&i  &*/'  - 

■api 

■tifM 

jf  'CL^  1 

--'(..  Kf 

■ .  ■  ■ 

■  1 

H^b>b>bIb>HbBL**Ti3 

AX 

IUBkxS 

HiiHBBen 

HE 


I  ■■ 


■HHllliHlBR^B9 


P 


philosophic  leaders  who  vainly  at- 
tempt to  direct  and  control  our 
Continental  destinies.  This  hope- 
lessness is  to  be  seen  in  the  fren- 
zied efforts,  the  volte-face 
changes,  the  kaleidoscopic  twists 
of  tactical  fronts,  and  in  the 
abandonment  or  reinstatement  of 
innumerable  efforts  to  make  the 
unworkable  work,  or  to  produce 
perpetual  motion  in  the  first  de- 
gree. 

The  unemployed  in  their  lei- 
sure are  now  beginning  to  claim 
that  which  has  never  been  con- 
sidered the  duty  of  any  govern- 
ment. Till  now,  the  govern- 
ments have  felt  that  their  duty 
towards  the  individual  citizen 
has  been  satisfied  when  they  es- 
tablished the  general  thesis  that 
all  citizens  were  entitled  to  chisel 
to  their  hearts'  content,  provided 
the  sacred  principle  of  ownership 
was  maintained  inviolate.  The 
unemployed  are  solidly  refusing 
to  accept  this  thesis.  They  are 
claiming,  with  increasing  vehe- 
mence, that  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
government  to  guarantee  each 
and  every  individual  citizen  food, 
clothing,  shelter,  and  at  least  the 
rudiments  of  amusement  and  re- 
creation. This  concept  of  social 
security  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave  is  new  and  virgin.  It  is  so 
new-fangled  that  there  is  no  pre- 
cedent for  it  in  the  tomes  of  the 


philosophers. 

No  political  government  that  is 
founded  on  the  philosophical  con- 
cepts of  the  European  and  Asiatic 
creeds  can  accept  this  concept.  It 
strikes  at  the  very  foundations  of 
the  Price  System  and  demands 
for  its  acceptance  the  elimination 
of  that  system.  This  new  concept 
has  grown  out  of  the  expansion 
of  the  uses  of  extraneous  energy. 
It  has  burgeoned  from  the  energy 
flows  emanating  from  the  new 
plants  across  the  Continent  oper- 
ated by  the  extraneous  energy  of 
coal,  gas,  oil,  and  hydro-electric 
power. 

In  the  face  of  this  concept,  it  is 
futile  to  attempt  to  maintain  the 
old  Roman  custom  of  bread  and 
circuses  in  the  maelstrom  of  an 
economic  crisis.  That  method 
was  applicable  when  the  crisis 
was  small  and  only  comparatively 
few  people  were  involved  in  it. 
Today,  with  millions  who  will 
never  work  again,  with  more  mil- 
lions whose  jobs,  savings,  and 
social  security  are  trembling  on 
the  edge  of  the  precipice  of  anni- 
hilation, with  millions  who  have 
had  leisure  time  forced  on  them, 
the  handicraft  method  that  work- 
ed so  well  in  the  Rome  of  the 
Emperors  will  prove  of  no  avail. 

Yesterday,  we  groped  among 
the  vain  imaginings  of  the  fore- 
runners of  the     human     species 


36 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


^m 


■ 


■ 


•tr.S' 


and  studied  the  ancient  and  em- 
bryonic writings  of  our  prede- 
cessors for  precedents  on  which 
we  could  base  our  actions.  To- 
day, it  is  useless  to  look  to  the 
past  for  our  salvation  and  our 
help.  We  can  no  longer  trust  to 
the  anthropomorphic  beliefs  and 
the  animistic  superstitions  of  the 
archaic  philosophies  for  our  aid 
in  present  troubles.  The  new 
concepts  have  arisen  out  of  new 
conditions.  For  the  technological 
problems  of  today,  we  must  use 
the  technological  solutions  that 
are  to  be  found  in  the  works  of 
science  and  not  in  philosophical 
subjective  treatises.  For  the  prob- 
lems of  the  America  of  today,  we 
need  the  American  solution.  The 
methods  of  Europe,  Asia,  Africa, 
or  Australia  are  worse  than  use- 
less to  us. 

The  operation  of  our  present 
technological  equipment,  and  the 
utilization  of  our  present  natural 
resources  with  the  reduction  of 
waste  effort  and  waste  time  to 
the  irreducible  minimum,  will  en- 
tail a  complete  change  in  our  con- 
cepts of  the  relationship  of  phy- 
sical labor  to  the  human  being, 
and  of  the  human  being  towards 
the  social  control  under  which  he 
has  to  live.  Human  labor  is  be- 
coming of  less  and  less  account. 
Even  under  the  anachronistic 
methods   which  we   still  employ, 

MARCH,  1945 


human  labor  only  accounts  for 
two  percent  of  the  energy  used 
in  producing  goods  and  services. 
Under  a  technological  control,  as 
outlined  by  Technocracy,  the 
amount  of  human  labor  required 
would  be  reduced  so  far  that  it 
would  be   negligible. 

The  elimination  of  human  toil, 
therefore,  instead  of  bringing  a 
major  problem  of  human  leisure 
to  the  fore,  would  have  an  entire- 
ly opposite  effect.  Leisure,  being 
the  antonym  of  human  labor, 
would  also  disappear.  Leisure,  as 
we  know  it  today,  neither  could 
nor  would  exist.  When  human 
toil  goes  into  the  discard,  leisure 
goes  too,  just  as  the  shadow 
moves  out  of  the  sunlight.  In- 
stead of  a  condition  which  pre- 
supposes the  division  of  time  into 
two  periods,  one  of  work  and  one 
of  leisure,  the  waking  hours  of 
the  human  race  would  be  em- 
ployed in  two  new  occupations. 

Leisure  is  the  avoidance  of  hu- 
man sweat  and  perspiration,  the 
forbearance  from  occupation,  and 
the  abstinence  from  employment. 
It  can  only  exist  in  a  society 
where  human  labor  is  the  sole 
means  of  producing  physical 
wealth.  Under  the  Technate  of 
the  New  America,  leisure  will 
fade  into  oblivion  and  cease  to 
concern  us.  The  first  occupation 
will  be  the  social  production  of 


37 


■ 


Wmm 


QmR 


3r» 


m 


■v:^ 


-'    H  '  B 

I  ■  Bf 


i  >  >**  ■ , 


ttEfM 


■ 
M 


physical  wealth  for  human  con- 
sumption. The  second  occupa- 
tion will  be  in  the  development  of 
living  beings.  There  will  be  no 
room  for  leisure  time  since  there 
will  be  no  human  perspiration  to 
avoid,  and  the  forbearance  from 
occupation  of  the  only  two  types 
extant  will  mean  the  forbearance 
of  the  individual  from  life  itself. 

This  second  new  occupation 
comprises  a  new  way  of  living,  a 
new  chapter  in  anthropology, 
and  a  new  set  of  habits,  customs, 
and  manners.  The  old  concepts 
and  assumptions  of  the  ages  of 
scarcity  will  not  avail  us  in  this 
new  era.  We  will  need  to  bring 
our  consciousness  new  concepts. 
We  will  have  to  use  a  new  set  of 
standards,  and  a  new  approach 
to  all  problems  concerning  the 
physical  world  in  which  we  live. 
We  shall  be  forced  to  abandon 
our  imported  Asiatic  practice  of 
ancestor  worship.  We  will  cease 
to  reverence  the  archaic  and  will 
no  longer  bow  the  knee  to  the 
fetishes  and  the  graven  images 
that  our  ancestors  held  so  dear. 

The  necessities  of  the  new  era 
of  technological  development  will 
demand  this  abandonment  of  our 
prejudices,  our  preconceived  op- 
inions, and  our  folklore  habits. 
We  cannot  adapt  ourselves  to  a 
metrical  state  of  society  and  re- 
tain    the     empirical     guess-work 


customs  of  the  past.  We  shall  be 
forced  to  change  our  ways;  not 
at  the  dictates  of  any  individual 
dictator  or  group  of  dictators,  but 
by  the  very  nature  of  the  physical 
forces  that  our  research  into  ex- 
traneous energy  has  brought  in- 
to play. 

Whether  we  like  this  situation 
or  not;  whether  it  is  pleasant  or 
unpleasant,  satisfying  or  distaste- 
ful; what  we  want  or  what  we 
do  not  want  does  not  matter  in 
the  least.  If  we  wish  to  continue 
the  act  of  living  on  this  Continent 
under  the  physical  conditions  that 
have  arisen  here,  we  will  have  to 
accept  the  conditions  as  we  find 
them  with  the  best  grace  we  can 
muster.  The  changes  we  are  liv- 
ing in  the  midst  of  are  irrever- 
sible changes.  There  is  nothing 
we  can  do  but  conform  our  lives 
and  adapt  our  ways  so  that  we 
can  make  the  best  of  them.  We 
cannot  reverse  the  irreversible; 
nor  can  we  go  back  to  suckling 
at  our  mothers'  breasts. 

Technocracy  postulates  a  new 
order  of  living.  Technocracy 
fore-shadows  the  passing  of  the 
old  ways.  The  resolving  of  the 
'how'  of  life,  the  presentation  of 
the  way  to  live  instead  of  the 
way  to  exist,  the  search  for  the 
means  by  which  we  may  banish 
from  the  mechanics  of  life  all  but 
the   irreducible   of    waste    effort 


38 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


and  time,  will  occupy  the  years 
we  shall  have  at  our  disposal. 
The  handicraft  worker  has  been 
so  circumscribed  by  toil  that  he 
never  knew  how  to  live.  He  had 
to  drudge  long  hours  to  produce 
enough  so  that  he  could  exist  in 
order  to  produce  more.  Life  was 
a  round  of  dreary  monotony. 

The  dreariness  of  this  monoton- 
ous round  of  life  was  such  that 
man  has  sought  in  vain  for  some 
way  by  which  he  could  escape 
from  the  dread  reality  that  he 
feared.  The  occupations  of  lei- 
sure have  failed  him  in  this  at- 
tempt. In  them  he  unwittingly 
foiled  himself.  He  invented 
dream  worlds  within  which  he 
hoped  to  avoid  these  realities, 
and  he  promulgated  the  defeatist 
doctrine  of  the  superiority  of 
mind  over  matter.  These  were 
but  defense  mechanisms,  the  last 
hope  of  the  weakling  and  the 
impotent. 

In  all  the  ancient  philosophies 
we  find  a  future  world  depicted, 
wherein  the  chosen  would  wan- 
der in  fieldjs  of  beauty,  by 
streams  of  sweetness,  and  in 
cities  of  delight.  The  very  few 
who  have  glimpsed  the  future  be- 
yond the  barriers  of  toil  and  lei- 
sure know  that  such  a  paradise 
need  not  be  withheld  to  some 
future  state.  It  has  been  here 
all  the  time,  waiting  for  the  for- 


ward surge  of  technology  to  re- 
veal it.  As  the  floodtide  of  tech- 
nology rises,  as  the  barriers  of 
toil  and  leisure  fall  before  the 
flow  of  greater  and  greater  en- 
ergy conversion,  we  shall  escape, 
not  from  reality,  but  out  of  the 
darkness  of  superstition  into  the 
sunlight  of  reality. 

The  beauty  and  the  glory  of 
reality  must  be  contacted  to  be 
appreciated.  Our  physical  senses 
have  been  so  dulled  by  the  opiate 
drugs  of  the  philosophers,  so  be- 
numbed by  the  close,  fetid  atmos- 
phere of  the  hogpens  of  leisure 
and  the  culture  of  the  past,  so 
calloused  by  the  brutal  drudgery 
of  human  toil,  that  we  cannot  as- 
similate the  exquisite  radiance  of 
the  realities  of  life  itself.  The 
magnificence  of  life  has  a  grand- 
eur, a  majesty  that  far  eclipses 
the  pictures  of  all  the  heavens 
drawn    by    the    old    philosophers. 

The  symphony  of  life  leaves 
the  greatest  orchestration  yet  at- 
tempted by  man  but  the  discord- 
ant ululations  of  the  primordial. 

Today,  we  have  but  the  culture 
of  the  leisure  of  the  age  of  pri- 
vation and  scarcity — the  culture 
based  on  human  exudations  and 
the  bodily  exertions  of  men,  wo- 
men, and  children;  the  culture  of 
a  leisure  that  flourished  in  the 
hotbeds  of  disease,  bestiality,  and 
filth  that  typify  the  past;  the  cul- 


MARCH,  1945 


39 


ture  of  a  leisure  that  has  passed 
into  its  second  childhood  and  is 
but  a  ghostly  shadow  of  its  form- 
er self. 

Tomorrow,  we  shall  have  dis- 
pensed with  human  toil,  dispens- 
ed with  leisure,  and  relegated  our 
musty  culture  to  the  museum  and 
the  library.  We  shall  have  be- 
fore us  the  task  of  becoming  cog- 
nizant of  the  way  to  live.  We 
shall  have  to  acquire  a  new  sense 
of  humor.  We  shall  have  to 
evolve  a  new  zest  for  life.  We 
shall  have  to  learn  to  play,  even 
as  our  fathers  had  to  learn  to 
work,  to  swink,  and  lather  in  the 
fields  and  at  the  bench.  When 
the  monkeys  in  the  lands  to  the 
south  of  us  no  longer  view  us 
with  compassion,  we  shall  have 
come  into  our  own. 

Instead  of  a  strained,  debasing, 
unwholesome,  and  degrading  ex- 
istence; instead  of  being  locked 
out  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  for 
daring  to  seek  the  knowledge  of 
how  to  cultivate  that  garden;  in- 
stead of  being  forced  to  lead  an 
existence  in  which  the  sole  plea- 
surable sensations  are  those  of 
sleeping,  eating,  drinking,  and 
propagating  our  species,  inter- 
mixed with  a  man-made  desire 
for  acquisitive  superiority,  we 
shall  be  free,  natural,  and  un- 
trammelled human  beings.  We 
shall    have    passed    beyond    the 


zone  of  the  brute  beast.  We  will 
have  the  opportunity,  if  we  can 
take  it,  to  become  a  new  species 
of  the  genus  homo. 

Leisure  was  the  hallmark 
of  freedom  in  the  days  of  scarcity. 
It  was  the  distinction  between  the 
master  and  the  slave.  When 
scarcity  has  departed  to  return  no 
more;  when  the  masters  and  the 
slaves  have  been  relegated  to  the 
history  book  and  the  legends  of 
folklore;  when  abundance  and  the 
Technate  of  the  New  America 
are  with  us,  both  toil  and  leisure 
will  have  been  eradicated.  If  we 
have  the  requisite  knowledge  and 
the  ability  to  apply  it,  we  may 
then  travel  ever  more  and  more 
closely  to  the  center  of  that  irre- 
versible and  uni-directional  road 
of  life,  along  which  we  have  to 
travel,  willy-nilly. 

We  shall  find  that  in  the  New 
America  that  is  to  be,  instead  of 
eking  out  a  precarious  existence, 
we  all  shall  have  to  learn  to  live. 
We  shall  be  forced  by  the  pres- 
sure of  technological  changes  to 
become  the  leaders  in  the  fore- 
front of  a  new  civilization.  We 
cannot  remain  semi-apes.  We 
shall  have  to  be  on  our  way  to 
become  objective  human  beings. 
Leisure  will  have  been  eliminat- 
ed. Life,  properly  lived,  has  no 
room   for   such   puerility. 

— G.  D.  Koe 


40 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


MP3tB 


I 

I 


Mr 


IAS 


Blood,  Sweat  and  Profits 


Instead  of  being  a  struggle  of  'blood,  sweat,  and  tears'  this  war  has 
been  like  a  huge  gravy  train  lor  some  people.  How  can  tve  look 
our  fighting  men  in  the  eye  and  tell  them  that  there  is  'equality  of 
sacrifice'  until  we  institute  National  Service  from  All  and  Profits 
to  None? 


THE  Bank  of  Canada,  central 
bank  corresponding  to  the 
Federal  Reserve  Bank  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  has  issued  a  financial 
report  on  665  large  companies  for 
the  years  1936-43  (Statistical 
Summary,  August-September 

1944).  A  footnote  to  the  report 
states  that  'the  sample  includes 
all  those  companies  with  1941 
assets  over  $200,000,'  but  banks, 
loan  companies,  and  railways  are 
notable  omissions.  Of  the  665, 
some  626  cover  manufacturing, 
communications,  wholesale  and 
retail  trade,  etc.;  the  other  39  are 
gold  mining  companies.  Since 
gold  mining  has  been  drastically 
curtailed  (it  is  the  most  useless 
of  industrial  metals)  with  a  con- 
sequent severe  reduction  in  pro- 
fits, the  Bank  of  Canada  figures 
have  been  readjusted  to  elimin- 
ate the  gold  mining. 

A  table  shows  that  1942  was  the 
peak  profit  year  so  far,  with  a 
slight  drop  in  1943.  The  com- 
panies set  aside  nearly  twice  as 
much  for  depreciation  in  1942  as 
in  1936,  and  when  this  excess  is 
added    back   we    find    that    there 


was  $258  net  profit  in  1942  for 
every  $100  in  1936. 

At  the  net  profit  point  the  hard- 
hearted Federal  Government 
stepped  in  to  claim  its  cut  of  the 
juicy  melon,  using  the  Excess 
Profits  Tax  as  a  sheer.  How  much 
of  the  melon  did  it  leave  for  poor 
suffering  business?  Surprise! 
Net  income  to  stockholders  was 
$197  in  1942  for  every  $100  in 
1936;  that  is,  nearly  twice  as  much 
clear  profit.  The  size  of  the 
melon  is  indicated  by  the  cumu- 
lative total — $2,280  million  profit 
instead  of  the  $1,530  million  they 
would  have  had  if  profits  had 
been  held  at  the  1936  level. 

When  we  make  a  comparison 
with  the  last  prewar  year,  we  find 
that  the  net  profit  was  $240  in 
1942  for  every  $100  in  1938;  and 
after  the  Government  took  its 
slice  there  was  $138  for  every 
$100  in  1938.  The  cumulative  to- 
tal of  clear  profit  in  1943  was 
$1,825  million  instead  of  the  $1,- 
220  million  the  companies  would 
have  had  if  profits  had  been 
maintained  at  the  1938  level. 

The    foregoing    applies    to    the 


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MARCH.  1945 


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average  profit — low  profit  offset- 
ting high  profit.  The  juicy  profits 
of  the  four  highest  were:  700  % 
increase  in  clear  profit  for  Pulp 
and  Paper;  1600%  for  Transpor- 
tation and  Storage;  185 %  for  Tex- 
tiles and  Apparel;  and  77%  for 
Food  Processing.  Of  the  22  in- 
dustrial classifications,  only  one 
showed  a  lessened  profit  (from 
1938)  to  shareholders  in  1942  and 
only  four  in  1943. 

A  rough  proof  of  the  correct- 
ness of  this  analysis  may  be  found 
in  the  Bank  of  Canada  Statistical 
Summary,  June-July,  1944,  (Fi- 
nancial Post,  September  9).  It  is 
shown  that  net  worth  (total  assets 
less  total  liabilities  and  specific  re- 
serves) was  2.16  times  as  great  at 
the  end  of  1942  as  it  was  at  the  end 
of  1936.  In  less  technical  terms, 
after  paying  all  expenses,  all  tax- 


es, all  declared  dividends,  these 
625  companies  had  an  average 
capital  of  $216  for  every  $100  of 
capital  in  1936. 

When  we  examine  the  above 
figures,  how  can  we  look  the  Arm- 
ed Forces  in  the  eye  and  tell  them 
that  there  is  'equality  of  sacrifice' 
in  this  war?  When  they  look  at 
the  rain  and  the  mud,  the  hell  of 
shellfire  and  bombing,  and  the 
hundreds  of  risks  and  annoyances 
that  only  the  fighting  men  have 
experienced,  how  can  we  dare 
make  such  a  claim? 

Let  us  install  Total  Conscrip- 
tion of  Men,  Machines,  Materiel 
and  Money  with  National  Service 
from  All  and  Profits  to  None  so 
that  our  Armed  Forces  can,  with 
high  morale  and  increased 
strength,  strike  the  knockout 
blow.  — W.  T.  House 


*  PARTICLES  AS  SMALL  as  1,000,000th  of  an  inch— 1,000th  of  the  diameter  of  a 
human  hair — can  be  measured  accurately  with  a  new  electron  microscope  developed 
by  General  Electric.  —Product  Encineerinc 

+  RADIO  ENGINEERS  PROVIDED  the  answer  to  another  problem  in  electro- 
lytically  tinning  steel.  As  the  steel  comes  from  the  plating  tanks  the  tin  has  a 
dull,  matte  finish.  The  surface  can  be  restored  to  its  customary  brightness  as  well 
as  improved  by  heating  the  thin  skin  of  tin  so  that  it  flows  ever  so  slightly.  One . 
new  way  of  doing  this  is  to  heat  the  tin  by  induction,  using  frequencies  of  about 
200,000  cycles.  The  freshly  tinned  sheet  is  passed  through  this  high-frequency  field 
where  the  high  currents  induced  in  the  surface  instantly  bring  the  tin  to  the  flowing 
temperature  and  then  it  is  quenched.  The  high-frequency  generators  are  really 
enormous  broadcast  transmitters.  For  a  strip  36  inches  wide  moving  at  1000  feet 
per  minute  a  transmitter  delivering  1200  kw  is  used.  This  is  24  times  as  large  as 
the  largest  commercial  broadcast  transmitter. 

— Westinchouse   Wartime   Encineerinc 


42 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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The  Story  of  Alberta  Coal 


Expectations  are  that  bituminous  mines  will  continue  to  be  busy  as 
long  as  war  factories  keep  humming  and  raihvays  are  burdened 
with  staggering  wartime  traffic.  The  main  worry  is:  lWhat  after 
the  war?' 

(continued  from  last  month) 


HOW  much  the  industry  de- 
pended on  the  prairies  and 
its  grain  crops  is  proven  by  re- 
cords. Bumper  grain  crops 
meant  enormous  coal  orders  and 
prosperity  for  miners.  Farmers 
had  the  money  for  heavy  fuel 
purchases  and  railways  required 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  tons  of 
coal  to  fire  locomotives  and  move 
the  grain  to  Vancouver  or  the 
head  of  the  Great  Lakes 

When  the  drought  of  the  '30's 
hit  the  prairies  its  impact  was 
felt  hundreds  of  feet  below  the 
surface  of  the  earth  and  idle 
miners  wandered  about  looking 
for  other  employment.  Thousands 
of  them  left  Alberta  coal  mining 
forever  during  the  drought  years 
and  depression. 

Then  came  the  shadow  of  war 
in  Europe  and  bristling  industrial 
activity  across  Canada.  Orders 
poured  into  Alberta  coal  fields 
by  the  countless  thousands. 

Railways  and  war  industries 
choked  up  bituminous  coal  mines 


Reprinted  from  Western  Business  And 
Industry  by  kind  permission  of  the 
publisher   and   the   author. 

MARCH,  1945 


with  pressing  demands  early  in 
1939  and  those  collieries  have 
been  working  practically  full 
time  since,  but  at  times  have 
dropped  months  behind  in  filling 
orders.  Efforts  to  establish  large 
stock-piles  have  not  been  accom- 
panied with  any  measure  of  suc- 
cess, as  often  railways  and  war 
industries  burned  the  coal  faster 
than  it  came  out  of  mines.  There 
have  been  times  when  reserve 
stocks  of  railway  coal  in  western 
Canada  contained  enough  fuel  for 
only  one  week. 

Able  to  offer  steady  employ- 
ment, bituminous  coal  mines  at- 
tracted hundreds  of  miners  away 
from  domestic  coal  fields,  where 
work  has  been  more  seasonal 
even  through  the  war.  One  call 
after  another  has  been  sounded 
for  more  experienced  coal  miners 
but  the  shortage  of  workers  has 
continued  in  all  fields,  worse  in 
domestic  coal  areas  than  in  the 
others. 

Faced  with  unprecedented  de- 
mands for  their  production,  most 
of  the  collieries  accelerated  de- 
velopment  work,   anxious   to   in- 


43 


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crease  their  output.  They  have 
continued  to  open  up  new  work- 
ings to  ensure  sustained  high 
production. 

While  the  greatest  job  has  fal- 
len on  bituminous  coal  mines, 
other  collieries  have  also  been 
put  to  their  most  trying  test  and 
in  some  ways  the  strain  on  do- 
mestic coal  producers  has  been 
more  severe  in  view  of  the  move- 
ment of  men  to  steam  coal  mines. 
All  fields,  however,  lost  heavily 
in  man-power  to  the  armed  forces 
and  war  industries. 

War  and  its  heavy  demands 
gave  Alberta's  coal  industry  the 
opportunity  to  prove  its  worth 
and  it  is  generally  conceded  that 
the  record  is  a  fine  one. 

Growing  needs  of  coal  in  On- 
tario gave  the  foothills  province 
a  record  business  in  the  east  un- 
til two  years  ago,  when  Alberta 
mine  operators  were  ordered  by 
Ottawa  to  concentrate  on  filling 
western  demands.  New  markets 
were  readily  found  in  British 
Columbia  as  war  industries  and 
domestic  coal  users  placed  heavy 
orders.  Much  Alberta  coal  has 
also  been  shipped  to  the  state  of 
Washington,  particularly  to 
Seattle  and  Spokane. 

Official  figures  on  the  distribu- 
tion of  Alberta  coal,  other  than 
that  purchased  by  railway  com- 
panies and  certain  industries  dur- 
ing 1942  and  1943,  tell  an  interest- 


44 


ing  story.  They  follow,  with  the 
1942  figures  in  brackets:  Alberta, 
1,560,212  tons  (1,474,795  tons); 
British  Columbia,  864,911  (652,- 
222);  Saskatchewan,  1,455,612 
(1,269,669);  Manitoba,  627,368 
(580,336);  Ontario,  1,190  (231,- 
258);  United  States,  414,627  (98,- 
197). 

Large  as  Alberta's  coal  produc- 
tion has  been  during  the  past  few 
years,  there  is  still,  nevertheless, 
the  widespread  feeling  in  the 
foothills  province  that  more  en- 
couragement could  have  been 
given  the  industry  by  a  national 
fuel  policy  which  might  have 
paved  the  way  for  establishing 
post-war  markets. 

Officials  point  out  that  On- 
tario and  Quebec  alone  imported 
28,456,959  tons  of  coal  from  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain 
last  year  and  of  this  18,365,760 
tons  was  bituminous  coal  brought 
to  Ontario  from  the  neighboring 
republic,  itself  straining  for  more 
coal.  The  preceding  year  the 
two  eastern  provinces  imported 
25,359,256  tons  and  of  this  15,954,- 
838  tons  was  bituminous  coal 
from  the  United  States. 

Admittedly,  little  could  have 
been  done  during  the  past  three 
or  four  or  five  years  about  in- 
creasing production  of  bitumin- 
ous coal  in  Alberta  to  the  point 
where  the  province  might  supply 
a   large  portion  of   Ontario's  re- 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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■        ■ 

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quirements.  Officials  of  the  in- 
dustry argue,  however,  that  if 
Alberta  mines  had  been  encour- 
aged more  during  the  prewar 
years  they  would  now  have  lar- 
ger numbers  of  experienced 
workers  and  could  contribute 
much  more  substantially  to  the 
coal  needs  of  the  Dominion. 

Railways,  war  industries  and 
other  consumers  of  Alberta  coal 
across  the  four  western  provinces 
and  in  Washington  have  flooded 
Alberta  with  orders  and  collieries 
are  working  full  time.  Even 
domestic  coal  mines  have  been 
working  all  summer  and  fall  to 
fill  early  orders  for  winter  fuel. 

Expectations  are  that  bitumi- 
nous mines  will  continue  to  be 
busy  as  long  as  war  factories 
keep  humming  and  railways  are 
burdened  with  staggering  war- 
time traffic. 

Domestic  coal  mines  have 
poured  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
tons  of  fuel  into  storage  bins  and 
have  months  of  steady  work  a- 
head  if  a  long  siege  of  cold  weath- 
er grips  the  West.  The  situation 
is  almost  identical  to  that  of  last 
winter,  when  large  stocks  of  coal 
were  put  away  by  consumers. 
As  the  first  months  of  the  winter 
were  mild  and  comparatively 
little  of  the  reserve  stock  was 
used,  wholesale  cancellations  of 
orders  poured  into  mine  offices 
from   jobbers   who     already    had 

MARCH,  1945 


too  much  coal  on  hand  for  that 
winter's  requirements.  Late  in 
December  and  early  in  January 
some  domestic  coal  mine  oper- 
ators received  notices  cancelling 
orders  for  more  than  40,000  tons 
of  coal  in  a  single  day.  The  re- 
sult was  slack  time  for  three  and 
four  months  in  domestic  coal 
fields. 

What  may  happen  in  the  next 
few  months  is  not  greatly  worry- 
ing the  coal  industry  as  a  whole. 
The  main  worry  is:  'What  after 
the  war?' 

Expectations  are  that  demand 
from  the  United  States  will  drop 
off  sharply.  The  same  is  expect- 
ed to  happen  with  British  Colum- 
bia when  many  present  coal  con- 
sumers can  again  secure  ample 
quantities  of  fuel  oil,  sawdust  and 
fuel  wood,  and  war  industries 
quieten. 

Even  the  prairies'  demand,  the 
mainstay  of  the  industry,  threat- 
ens to  decline.  Military  estab- 
lishments will  no  longer  be  large 
customers  and  industries  and 
railways  will  require  less  fuel  as 
they  return  to  normal. 

Officials  look  to  a  greater  mar- 
ket for  Alberta  coal  in  Ontario  if 
measures  are  taken  to  lower 
railway  freight  rates  to  a  level  at 
which  the  fuel  can  -compete 
against  imported  coal. 

There  is  another  avenue  along 
which  more  imaginative  officials 


45 


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are  looking,  however,  and  one 
which  may  bring  far  vaster  riches 
to  the  province  than  merely 
shipping  away  trainloads  of  coal. 

Alberta's  bituminous  coal  is 
known  to  contain  at  least  126  by- 
products including  oils,  perfume, 
aspirin,  acids,  dyes,  tar,  gas,  ben- 
zol, pitch,  coke,  lamp  black  and 
gasoline. 

"The  day  of  hydrogenation  of 
Alberta  coal  is  coming  and  it  may 
not  be  too  many  years  before  we 
see  new  plants  rising  beside  our 
collieries,'  one  mine  operator  told 
me  recently. 

He  is  not   alone  in  that  view! 

Another  official  explained: 
'We've  been  mining  coal  for 
burning  long  enough.  It's  time 
we  started  taking  the  black  magic 
out  of  it  and  stretched  out  the 
coal  industry  into  a  long  series 
of  industries.  Chemists  have 
processed    coal    to    yield    rubber, 


nylon,  dyes,  plastics,  TNT  and  a 
long  list  of  other  products. 

'We  have  everything  we  need 
to  develop  important  industries 
on  top  of  our  coal  fields  except 
the  leadership  and  capital  but 
that  will  come  along  too.  Then 
look  for  great  industrial  and 
manufacturing  cities  rising  in 
Alberta,'  he  added. 

Despite  the  record  production 
capacity  of  Alberta's  coal  indus- 
try and  the  indefinite  outlook  for 
the  post-war  years,  officials  of 
the  industry  are  not  sitting  back 
idly.  They  are  laying  plans  f6r 
an  intensive  campaign  to  secure 
new  markets  and  they  are  also 
co-operating  with  the  Research 
Council  of  the  University  of  Al- 
berta in  the  hopes  that  the  day 
will  be  hastened  when  'black 
magic'  will  be  taken  from  the 
coal.  — George  A.  Yackulic 


Canada's  Export  Trade 


*  OTTAWA,  Jan.  18— The  Dominion  Bureau  of  Statistics  reported 
that  Canada's  domestic  merchandise  export  trade  reached  record  pro- 
portions in  1944,  the  total  being  $3,439,953,000,  against  $2,971,475,000 
in  1943  or  an  advance  of  15.8  percent. 

Export  to  Empire  countries  totalled  $1,620,451,000  against  $1,401,- 
662,000  in  1943,  an  increase  of  15.6  percent  and ,  exports  to  foreign 
countries  totalled  $1,819,502,000  against  $1,569,813,000,  an  increase  of 
15.9  percent. 

Domestic  merchandise  exports  to  the  United  States  during  1944 
were  valued  at  $1,301,322,000,  against  $1,149,232,000,  against  $1,149,- 
232,000  in  1943,  an  increase  of  13.2  percent.  Value  of  exports  to  the 
United  Kingdom  in  1944  reached  $1,235,030,000  against  $1,032,647,000 
in  1943,  an  increase  of  19.6  percent.  — Canadian  Press 


46 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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The  Technocracy  Study  Course 


Chemistry,  biology,  and  physics  that  were  so  cold  and  dead  and 
dull  in  the  benches  of  academic  institutions,  become  potent  and 
fascinating  to  the  students  of  Technocracy,  for  these  branches  of 
science  are  shown  to  be  an  implicit  and  indivisible  part  of  our 
social  totality. 


THE  studies  of  Technocracy 
embrace  practically  the 
whole  fields  of  science  and  in- 
dustry because  Technocracy  is 
dealing  with  social  phenomena  in 
the  widest  sense  of  the  word  .  .  . 
and  this  includes  not  only  actions 
of  human  beings,  but  also  every- 
thing else  which  directly  or  in- 
directly affects  their  actions.  All 
this  is  set  forth  in  the  22-lesson 
Study  Course  of  the  Organization. 
The  purpose  of  the  Technocracy 
Study  Course  is  not  to  give  to 
any  person  a  comprehensive 
knowledge  of  science  and  tech- 
nology, but  rather  to  present  an 
outline  of  the  essential  elements 
as  they  pertain  to  the  social  prob- 
lem in  a  unified  picture. 

The  Study  Course  of  Tech- 
nocracy conditions  its  students 
to  interpret  all  things  in  the 
scientific  manner — to  demand  ob- 
jective analyses,  exact  measure- 
ments and  factual  statements.  The 
conditioned  members  of  Tech- 
nocracy, whether  they  be  farm- 
ers, bakers,  teachers,  or  dentists, 
are  unique  and  amazing  in  that 

MARCH,  1945 


they  maintain  this  strictly  scien- 
tific attitude  in  all  their  actions. 
They  are  no  longer  swayed  by 
emotions,  influenced  by  preju- 
dices, or  guided  by  egotistical 
considerations. 

To  them,  science  becomes  an 
everyday  reality,  not  the  sub- 
lime mystery  of  highbrows  in 
their  temples  ....  The  laws  of 
thermodynamics  are  no  longer  in- 
comprehensible terminologies 
but  become  a  simple  and  inter- 
esting demonstration  of  the  laws 
by  which  we  exist  in  the  com- 
plexity of  functional  processes 
....  Chemistry,  biology,  and 
physics  that  were  so  cold  and 
dead  and  dull  in  the  benches  of 
academic  institutions,  become 
potent  and  fascinating  to  the 
students  of  Technocracy,  for 
these  branches  of  science  are 
shown  to  be  an  implicit  and  in- 
divisible part  of  the  fabric  that  is 
our  social  totality — the  biological 
organisms,  the  diesel  trains,  the 
hydro-turbines,  the  kitchen  re- 
frigerators, and  the  electric  or- 
gans .... 


47 


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Save  a  Soldier  -  Give  lour  Blood! 


It  is  imperative  that  ive  attend  the  Blood  Donor  Clinic  regularly. 
The  men  overseas  are  giving  their  blood  on  the  fighting  fronts;  we 
should  be  willing  to  give  our  blood  to  save  their  lives. 


ALONG  with  about  two  hun- 
dred other  blood  donors, 
twenty-seven  Technocrats  at- 
tended the  Canadian  Red  Cross 
Society  Blood  Donor  Service  at 
615  West  Hastings  Street  in  Van- 
couver, B.  C,  on  Thursday,  Janu- 
ary 4th,  1945. 

Handled  expeditiously,  effici- 
ently, and  courteously,  each  don- 
or passes  through  various  stages 
prior  to  the  actual  donation,  in- 
cluding reading  of  temperature, 
testing  of  blood  type,  and  count- 
ing of  pulse.  Finally,  the  spot- 
lessly clean  clinic  where  the  blood 
is  withdrawn  is  reached.  The 
nurse  in  attendance  at  each  of  the 
many  cots  requires  her  perspec- 
tive donor  to  lie  on  his  back  with 
one  arm  outstretched  sideways. 
The  inside  of  the  elbow  is  clean- 
sed with  antiseptic,  after  which  a 
physician  injects  a  small  amount 
of  anaesthetic.  Then  the  blood 
is  withdrawn.  Four  hundred  and 
fifty  cubic  centimeters  (approxi- 
mately four  fifths  of  a  pint)  flow 
through  a  tube  into  a  sterile 
bottle  at  the  side  of  the  cot.  In  a 
few  minutes  the  donation  is  com- 
pleted, and  the  donor  is  allowed 


to  rest  briefly  on  the  cot  while 
his  arm  is  given  a  sterile  dressing, 
after  which  he  is  escorted  to  an 
adjoining  room  for  a  longer  rest 
and  refreshment.  For  the  aver- 
age person,  there  are  no  detri- 
mental after-effects. 

For  an  eight-hour  period  pre- 
vious to  the  donation,  the  donor 
subsists  on  a  fat-free  diet  to  en- 
sure that  the  blood  will  not  be 
wasted.  A  substantial  meal  after- 
ward is,  therefore,  much  appreci- 
ated. 

Immediately  following  the 
evening's  donations,  the  blood  is 
taken  to  the  Provincial  Labora- 
tories where  processing  begins. 
After  the  serum  is  separated  by 
means  of  a  centrifuge  from  the 
whole  blood,  it  is  sent  to  Con- 
naught  Laboratories  in  Toronto 
where  the  operation  is  completed. 
The  drying  of  the  serum,  which 
is  the  last  stage  of  the  process, 
requires  from  eight  to  ten  weeks, 
after  which  it  is  ready  to  be  ship- 
ped overseas  in  special  containers. 
Every  transfusion,  which  is  the 
finished  product,  has  been  the 
result  of  three  blood  donations, 
and  each  may  save  the  life  of  a 


48 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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wounded  fighting  man! 

Why,  you  ask,  is  serum  used 
for  transfusions  instead  of  whole 
blood?  Would  not  the  latter  be 
by  far  the  more  beneficial? 

In  certain  special  circumstances 
this  contention  is  true,  as  the 
serum  does  not  contain  the 
blood's  full  quality,  but  for  the 
great  majority  of  cases,  the  serum 
is  adequate  for  the  needs. 

Whole  blood  possesses  certain 
disadvantages  which  are  not 
found  in  the  serum.  Chief  among 
these  is  that  it  deteriorates  rather 
quickly,  and  unless  guarded  un- 
der very  special  conditions  and 
used  within  a  week  or  ten  days, 
it  cannot  be  used  at  all.  Often 
such  particular  attention  is  im- 
possible on  the  battlefront,  so  a 
satisfactory  substitute  must  be 
made.  Serum  meets  the  need 
very  adequately,  for  it  may  be 
stored  indefinitely  until  required, 
and,  with  the  simple  addition  of 
distilled  water,  it  assumes  the 
relative  properties  of  whole 
blood.  Thus  it  is  usually  possible 
to  give  a  serum  transfusion  where 
a  whole  blood  transfusion  would 
be   impossible. 

Whole  blood  exists  in  four 
types,  none  of  which  change 
within  the  bodies  of  the  persons 
possessing  them  during  their  life- 
times. One  of  these  types  is  in- 
terchangeable among  the  other 
three,  but  the  others  must  never 

MARCH,  1945 


be  mixed,  else  death  will  result. 
Therefore,  when  transfusion  is 
with  whole  blood,  it  is  necessary 
to  test  the  type  of  both  the  donor 
and  the  recipient  to  be  sure 
their  types  are  the  same  or  can 
be  mixed.  Processing  has  remov- 
ed this  characteristic  from  serum, 
so  that  it  may  be  used  on  any 
person  regardless  of  blood  type. 

The  needs  of  the  Blood  Donor 
Clinic  are  great.  An  objective  of 
45,000  donors  for  1945  has  been 
set  by  the  Vancouver  branch  of 
the  Canadian  Red  Cross  Blood 
Donor  Service.  In  order  to  reach 
the  objective,  there  must  be  2,500 
new  donors  signed  up  each 
month.  Do  not  think  that  this 
number  is  all  that  is  needed  to 
meet  all  requirements.  Actually, 
the  Service  never  has  enough 
donors.  Remember,  it  takes 
three  donations  to  make  one 
transfusion,  and  often  several 
transfusions  are  given  to  save  one 
soldier's  life.  The  increasing  lists 
of  casualties  from  the  war  fronts 
will  make  necessary  every  ounce 
of  blood  which  able-bodied  per- 
sons between  18  and  60  can  give. 

Are  you  a  blood  donor?  If  so, 
good — it  is  one  of  the  most 
worthy  services  you  can  per- 
torm.  If  not,  and  if  you  are  in 
good  health  and  between  the  stip- 
ulated ages,  apply  today  to  your 
nearest  Blood  Donor  Clinic  or 
the  Blood  Donor  Clinic  Service, 


49 


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National  Headquarters,  Canadian 
Red  Cross  Society,  95  Wellesley 
St.,  Toronto.  When  an  appoint- 
ment is  arranged,  be  sure  to  keep 
it,  or,  if  unable  to  do  so,  contact 
the  Clinic  immediately  and  make 
a  new  appointment. 

The  Red  Cross  particularly  re- 
quests that  any  groups  intending 
to  visit  Clinics  in  a  body  submit 
at  least  a  week  in  advance  a  list 
of  the  persons  comprising  the 
group,  so  that  notices  regarding 
diet  specifications,  etc.,  may  be 
sent  to  each  prospective  donor. 

Technocrats  of  Vancouver  are 
intending  to  form  such  groups 
each  month  to  give  donations  to 
the   local   Clinic   until   no   longer 


required.  They  know  the  bene- 
fits thus  derived  by  wounded 
Canadian  troops  overseas  are 
real,  and  that  such  donations  will 
make  it  possible  for  more  of  them 
to  return  home. 

Such  a  vital  need  should  not 
be  left  to  haphazard  individual 
voluntary  effort,  but  until  the 
Government,  installs  Total  Con- 
scription of  everything  we  pos- 
sess, it  is  imperative  that  we  at- 
tend the  Blood  Donor  Clinic 
regularly.  The  men  overseas  are 
giving  their  blood  on  the  fighting 
fronts;  we  should  be  willing  to 
give  our  blood  to  save  their  lives. 
— Rupert  N.  Urquhart 


Wood  Instead  of  Steel 


*  WAR  IS  NO  RESPECTER  of  materials.  Even  iron,  the  king  of 
them  all,  always  considered  inexhaustible,  is  critically  short.  This  is 
particularly  true  in  thin  sheet.  Yet  a  single  large  new  war  plant  may 
require  as  much  as  100,000  square  feet  of  18  gauge  (0.05-inch  thick) 
steel  just  for  the  reflectors  for  the  sea  of  fluorescent  lamps.  This  is  a 
five-foot  strip  nearly  four  miles  long  and  weighs  20,000  pounds.  A  new 
kind  of  reflector  saves  all  this  steel.  It  is  made  of  wood  -  Masonite  - 
which  is  wood  pulp  literally  exploded  in  a  gun,  and  pressed  under  heat 
and  high  pressure  to  an  exceedingly  dense,  smooth,  hard  board.  To 
obtain  a  reflecting  surface  the  reflector  board  is  sprayed  with  a  new 
synthetic  enamel  that  dries  under  heat  by  polymerization  instead  of 
evaporation  of  solvent.  Under  heat  the  molecules  of  the  enamel  form 
into  long  molecular  chains,  which  gives  a  surface  as  hard  and  durable 
as  steel.  Unlike  the  porcelain-coated  steel  reflector,  the  new  surface 
is  not  chipped  if  the  unit  is  dropped  or  struck  with  a  hammer. 

— Westinghouse  Wartime  Engineering 


50 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


mi  R 


TECHNOCRACY 


WHAT? 

Technocracy  is  science  in  the  social 
field.  Encyclopedia  Americana  says: 
'Whatever  the  future  of  Technocracy, 
one  must  fairly  say  that  it  is  the 
only  program  of  social  and  economic 
reconstruction  which  is  in  complete 
intellectual  and  technical  accord  with 
the  age  in  which  we  live.' 

WHEN? 

Technocracy  originated  in  the  winter 
of  1918-1919  when  Howard  Scott 
formed  a  group  of  scientists,  engin- 
eers, and  economists  that  became 
known  in  1920  as  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance— a  research  organization.  Some 
of  the  better  known  names  in  the 
Technical  Alliance  are  of  interest, 
such  as:  Frederick  L.  Ackerman,  ar- 
chitect; L.  K.  Comstock,  electrical 
engineer;  Stuart  Chase,  C.P.A.  (now 
well-known  writer);  Bassett  Jones, 
electrical  engineer;  Leland  Olds, 
statistician  (now  Federal  Power 
Commissioner) ;  Benton  Mackaye 
(now  in  the  Forestry  Department); 
Charles  P.  Steinmetz  and  Thorstein 
Veblen  (both  now  dead).  Howard 
Scott  was  Chief  Engineer.  In  1930 
the  group  was  first  known  as  Tech- 
nocracy. In  1933  it  was  incorporated 
under  the  laws  of  the  state  of  New 
York  as  a  non-profit,  non-political, 
non-sectarian  membership  organiza- 
tion. In  1934  Howard  Scott,  Direct- 
or-in-Chief,  made  his  first  Continent- 
al lecture  tour  which  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  present  Continental 
membership  organization.  Since  1934 
Technocracy  has  grown  steadily  with- 
out any  spectacular  spurts,  revivals, 
collapses,  or  rebirths.  This  is  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  press  has 
generally  'held  the  lid'  on  Technoc- 
racy, until  early  in  1942  when  it 
made  the  tx'emendous  'discovery'  that 
Technocracy  had  been  reborn  sudden- 
ly, full-fledged  with  all  its  members, 
headquarters,   etc.,  in   full   swing! 


WHY? 

Technocracy's  survey  of  the  econo- 
mic situation  in  North  America  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  de- 
velopment a  process  of  progressive 
social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instability 
reaches  the  limits  of  social  tolerance 
and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be 
installed  on  this  Continent  a  social 
mechanism  competent  to  meet  the 
needs  of  its  people.  Technocracy 
finds  further  that  the  day  when 
social  operations  on  this  Continent 
can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now 
necessary  that  there  be  applied  in 
the  social  field  the  quantitative 
methods  of  physical  science.  Tech- 
nocracy, therefore,  proposes  that  the 
North  American  Continent  be  operat- 
ed as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This 
control  would  operate  the  area  under 
a  balanced-load  system  of  production 
and  distribution,  whereunder  there 
would  be  distributed  purchasing 
power  commensurate  with  the  re- 
sources and  the  continuous  full-load 
operation  of  the  physical  equipment, 
with  the  guarantee  of  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living,  equality  of  income,  and 
economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of 
working  hours,  to  every  adult  in- 
habitant. 

HOW? 

At  this  stage  the  objectives  of  Tech- 
nocracy are  first,  the  education  of 
the  people  of  North  America  to  a 
realization  of  the  conditions  behind 
the  social  crisis,  and  second,  the  or- 
ganization of  all  those  willing  to  in- 
vestigate and  interest  themselves  in- 
to an  informed,  disciplined,  and  func- 
tionally capable  body  whose  know- 
ledge and  ability  can  be  called  upon 
to  prevent  chaos  in  North  America 
at  that  time,  now  imminent,  when 
the  Price  System  can  no  longer  be 
made  to  operate.     . 


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9 


Ex-Servicemen  and  Jobs 


IT  is  now   almost   four  months   since   I  was   released,  as   being  no   longer  required, 
from  the  quasi-military,  non-combat  employment  I  secured  following  my  honorable 
discharge,    on    medical    grounds,   from   the    Royal   Canadian    Air   Force,   and    after 
operational  service  in  the  first  six  months  of  this  war. 

Since  that  lime  I  have  made  every  effort  to  secure  employment  of  any  description 
from  one  end  of  Canada  to  the  other,  to  no  avail.  My  country  has  no  need  of  me 
in  the  business  of  living,  only  in  the  business  of  death.  Day  by  day  my  savings 
melt  away.  This  is  a  repetition  of  what  my  family  went  through  during  the  depression. 
Day  by  day  I  become  more  and  more  sick  at  heart  with   idleness  and  frustration. 

If  I,  a  man  of  university  education,  excellent  service  record,  and  a  certain  degree 
of  maturity  of  mind  at  30  years  of  age,  find  myself  becoming  more  and  more  em- 
bittered, hating  all  in  authority  and  all  who  enjoy  the  security  I  lack,  what  must  it 
be  like  with  those  lacking  my  advantages?     Or  are  they  advantages?   .  .  . 

Tomorrow  I  shall  probably  have  another  interview  with  another  tycoon  of  in- 
dustry. After  perusing  my  credentials  he  will  probably  say:  'Well,  well,  Squadron 
Leader,  good  to  be  back  to  civil  life,  eh?  Just  the  sort  of  young  men  this  country 
needs.  Afraid  there's  nothing  I  have  to  offer  you  just  at  present.  Now,  I'm  off  to 
Ottawa  in  the  morning;  shan't  be  back  for  three  weeks.  If  you  haven't  lined  up 
anything  by  then,  come  and  see  me  again.' 

With  a  smile  on  my  face,  but  a  pain  in  my  belly,  I  shall  be  thinking:  'God  damn 
your  eyes!  Is  it  so  good  to  be  back  in  civil  life?  How  do  you  know?  Why  didn't 
I  die  when  I  went  down  in  the  sea?  Why  have  I  lived  to  endure  this?'  And  I 
shall  get  up  out  of  my  chair,  and  say,  oh,  so  politely:  'Thank  you.' 

— Ex-Officer  in   Vancouver  Sun 

(Section  Stamp) 


■•  '     •■■•■ 


APR. 


m» 


PUBLISHED  IN  CANADA  BY  SEC.  1  -  R.  D.  12349 

TECHNOCRACY    INC. 


25c 


TECHNOCRACY 

DICE5T 


THE   ONLY   MAGAZINE   IN   CANADA   THAT   IS   PREPARING   THE   PEOPLE   OF   THIS 
COUNTRY    FOR   SOCIAL   CHANGE 


APRIL,  1945 


VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 


No.  82 


—STAFF- 


DONALD  Bruce   Editor 

W.  D.  Ellwyn  Assistant  Editor 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Assistant  Editor 

Rupert  N.  Urquhart    ...  Assistant  Editor 


M.  C.  McKay  Business  Manager 

G.  H.  Connor  Circulation  Manager 

V.   A.   Knudsen   Research 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Production 


The  Advertising  Nightmare 3 

The  Birthplace  of  the  Future      11 

Gleaned  from  the  Research  Files      13 

The  CCF  Concoction  -  Part  3  18 

The  Crusades  for  International  Salvation      23 

The  Art  of  the   Sun  30 

It's  Sweet  Traffic 37 

What  Is  Abundance?   42 

Notes  on  Organization .47 


Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349,  Techno- 
cracy Inc.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies  25  cents.  Twelve  issues  for  $2.50; 
six  issues  for  $1.25.  Bundle  rates  10  to  100,  20  cents  per  copy;  100  copies  or 
more,  19  cents  each.  Continental  Headquarters  of  Technocracy  Inc.  is  at  155 
E.  44th  St.,  New  York  17,  N.  Y.  Send  all  correspondence  and  manuscripts  and 
make  all  money  orders  payable  to  Technocracy  Digest,  625  West  Pender  St., 
Vancouver,  B.  C.  Entered  as  second  class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  Department, 
Ottawa.     Printed  in  Canada. 

ATLAS     rfjKajfau    PRINTERS 


FRONT  COVER 

Iron  ore  from  the  Mesabi  Range  being  unloaded  at  a  steel  mill  on  the  Great  Lakes. 
The  Great  Lakes  system  is  the  busiest  inland  waterway  in  the  world.  In  the  summer 
of  1942  alone,  the  Sault  Ste.  Marie  Canal  passed  more  traffic  than  either  Suez  or 
Panama  have  passed  in  their  entire  histories.  That  year  Great  Lakes  shipping  carried 
a   total   of  93  million   tons  of  ore — on  some  days  almost  a  million  tons. 

(National  Film  Board  Photo1 


>    ■ 


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A. 


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HE      Bu| 


The  Advertising  Nightmare 


Are  you  not  tired  of  being  harangued  by  the  continual  deluge  of 
advertising  bilge?  In  the  Technate  our  present  Price  System  ad- 
vertising ivill  seem  like  the  bad  dream  of  a  mad  copy  writer. 


DO  you  get  up  nights  with 
backache,  nervousness,  leg 
pains,  rheumatic  twinges?  Is  your 
rupture  being  held  firmly  in 
place  by  a  non-skid  truss?  Are 
you  a  squirmer? 

In  war  time  these  are  all  very 
vital  questions. 

You  have  finished  a  hard  day 
at  your  lathe,  in  your  laboratory, 
at  the  controls  of  an  electric 
transmission  station,  or  whatever 
your  war  job  may  be,  and  it  is 
time  to  go  home  to  a  well  earned 
evening  of  relaxation.  The  trans- 
portation system  is  overtaxed 
and  you  elbow  your  way  into  a 
crowded  streetcar  where  you 
digest  the  rows  of  multi-colored 
advertisements  through  a  gener- 
ous stock  of  celery  foliage  which 
a  distraught  matron  flourishes  in 
your  face.  Do  you  suffer  from 
sneezing,  sniffling  colds?  Do 
dishpan  hands  mar  your  chances 
for  romance? 

The  car  jerks  to  a  halt  and  this 
is  the  appointed  place  where  you 
meet  friend  neighbor — the  man 
who  still  has  four  tires  and  a 
ration    book.    A     ride     into    the 

APRIL,  1945 


country  should  be  an  enjoyable 
respite,  but  there  they  are  again 
— long  lines  of  billboards,  dotting 
the  horizon,  hedging  in  the  high- 
ways, and  cluttering  up  the  land- 
scape. Are  you  enjoying  the 
tangy  goodness  of  Schneidelwitz 
Beer?  Have  you  made  your  will? 
Where  will  you  spend  eternity? 

Home  at  last  and  the  aroma  of 
fine  food  greets  you  at  the  kit- 
chen door.  The  little  woman  has 
a  steaming  hot  supper  cooking. 
You  have  just  time  to  relax  in 
the  downy  depths  of  your  favor- 
ite easy  chair  and  catch  up  on 
the  day's  news.  The  Unionville 
Bugle  is  near  at  hand  and  you 
turn  its  pages  eagerly  in  search 
of  newsy  tidbits.  But,  brother, 
you  haven't  escaped  yet.  Hold 
tight  for  further  interrogation. 
Are  you  a  victim  of  gastric  hyper- 
acidity which  brings  on  belching 
and  social  distress?  Are  you  flat 
chested  and  scrawny,  the  subject 
of  ridicule  on  the  beach?  Do  you 
wake  up  screaming? 

By  this  time  you  are- starting  to 
feel  ill  so  you  switch  on  your 
radio,  hoping  to  relieve  the  ten- 


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sion,  only  to  cut  in  on  one  of  those 
gripping  episodes  from  the  life  of 
Doctor  Daphne  Wyatt,  wherein 
this  professional  angel  incarnate 
ushers  you  right  into  the  more 
intimate  romantic  aspects  of  her 
private  practice,  followed  by  a 
gushing  Lothario  who  tells  you  a- 
bout  a  new  special  ingredient 
which  has  been  added  to  Double 
Bubble  Soap — one  that  goes  deep 
into  the  extra  soiled  spots  and 
personally  escorts  out  the  extra 
stubborn  semi-microscopic  mor- 
sels of  dirty  dirt.  A  switch  of  the 
dial  brings  in  still  another  strange 
phenomenon.  One  of  the  gay  gal- 
lants of  the  airwaves  is  playing 
games  with  the  housewives  over 
the  already  overtaxed  telephone 
system.  There  are  prizes  for  those 
who  can  identify  a  tune  which 
has  been  drummed  into  our  ears 
for  a  decade.  Still  another  station 
is  emitting  subterranean-tone 
voices  warning  that  you,  too,  may 
offend  without  knowing  it.  At 
this  point  you  are  very  likely  to 
indulge  in  a  social  indiscretion 
that  would  be  frowned  upon  by 
that  well-publicized  authority  on 
matters  of  etiquette,  Emily  Post. 
It  is  impossible  to  escape  ad- 
vertising propaganda.  It  is  omni- 
present. It  blares  forth  from  the 
radio,  the  movies,  the  lecture 
platform,  and  even  the  school 
room.  It  stares  at  us  constantly 
from  the  press  and  from  maga- 


zines. It  leers  at  us  quietly  in  the 
sanctuary  of  our  home. 

Paying  the  Piper.  Amusing 
reading,  is  it  not?  But  wait,  may- 
be it  is  not  all  so  funny.  Remem- 
ber there's  a  war  on! 

According  to  T.  Swann  Hard- 
ing in  The  Protestant,  all  U.S.  ad- 
vertisers in  1941  spent  the  sum 
of  $304,260,562  on  advertising  in 
general  magazines,  farm  journals, 
and  over  the  radio  only;  the 
figure  was  $310,233,493  in  1942; 
and  in  1943  it  rose  to  $407,147,265. 

In  1942  about  400  firms  spent 
more  than  $100,000  each  and  50 
spent  more  than  a  million  dollars 
each  on  these  forms  of  advertis- 
ing. In  1943  more  than  500  firms 
spent  $100,000  or  more  each  and 
70  spent  a  million  or  more.  The 
costs  and  extent  of  advertising 
are  increasing  rapidly  as  we  fight 
for  our  existence.  A  few  details 
are  revealing.  They  relate  to  1943. 

A  soap  company  spent  the  huge 
sum  of  $15,509,236  on  advertising 
in  magazines,  farm  journals,  and 
over  the  radio.  That  topped  the 
list.  A  food  corporation  came  next 
with  $11,730,650.  A  drug  firm 
stood  fourth  and  a  milling  con- 
cern sixth.  Manufacturers  of 
foods  and  pharmaceuticals,  cos- 
metics and  soaps  peppered  the 
list  down  to  the  point  where  it 
tapered  off  with  a  soup  company's 
$2,811,895. 

In  1939  the  U.S.  Federal  Gov- 


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ernment  appropriated  around 
$164  million  for  scientific  re- 
search. The  same  year  the  Ameri- 
can nation  spent  $1.6  billion  on 
advertising  of  all  kinds — 2.3  per- 
cent of  the  national  income.  (Can- 
adian figures  are  not  available, 
but  they  would  tell  the  same 
story.) 

And  you  and  I  are  paying  the 
bill. 

Through  a  series  of  clever  de- 
vices these  tremendous  sums  are 
shouldered  right  back  onto  the 
consumer.  In  peacetime  we  pay 
them  as  mark-up  on  the  selling 
price  of  the  goods.  In  wartime 
these  sums  are  charged  off  before 
the  excess  profits  tax  intervenes. 

In  the  case  of  companies  which 
are  government  owned  or  fin- 
anced the  situation  assumes  a 
still  more  ridiculous  aspect.  At  a 
time  when  governments  are 
warning  against  inflation  we 
spend  astronomic  sums  to  force 
sales  on  those  very  items  which 
our  government  does  not  want  us 
to  buy.  At  a  time  when  revenues 
are  said  to  be  difficult  to  find  we 
allow  tax  deductions  on  a  non- 
essential item  such  as  advertising, 
not  to  mention  the  waste  of  ma- 
terials, power,  transportation, 
communications,  and  man-hours 
that  are  involved  in  this  gigantic 
effort. 

Is  it  worth  nearly  $6  million  a 
year  to   us  to  learn  the  limited 


virtues  of  a  group  of  overrated 
and  possibly  harmful  home  reme- 
dies? Is  it  worth  nearly  $4  million 
to  be  acquainted  with  the  super- 
lative qualities  of  one  cigarette 
or  nearly  $3  million  to  have  the 
necessity  for  chewing  a  certain 
gum  repeatedly  brought  to  our 
attention?  Are  the  expensive 
trick  foods  of  a  great  corporation 
so  incomparable  that  we  should 
be  asked  to  spend  nearly  $12  mil- 
lion a  year  merely  to  hear  about 
them? 

Still  another  hidden  cost  is  the 
salaried  force  of  officials  who  are 
required  to  keep  the  game  with- 
in the  rules;  that  is,  to  deal  with 
the  false  and  misleading  adver- 
tisements. We  shall  not  take  time 
to  elaborate  on  this  point  here, 
but  there  is  ample  evidence  in  the 
records  of  the  Federal  Trade 
Commission  and  other  organiza- 
tions to  show  that  even  the  most 
distinguished  trade  marks  are  no 
guarantee  of  either  quality  or 
quantity  and  that  frauds  are  nu- 
merous. 

When  men  are  dying  in  mud, 
slush,  swamp,  and  jungle  it  is 
hardly  appropriate  that  half-page 
newspaper  ads  in  their  thousands 
be  used  to  announce  what  milady 
will  wear.  Who  cares  about  the 
new  millinery  creation  with  its 
'soft  moulded,  sleek  sophistica- 
tion, casual  correctness,  and  ex- 
otic dash  that  thrills  like  mad' — 


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at  a  cool  $33?  And  while  we're 
on  the  subject,  the  boys  in  the 
foxholes  take  a  rather  dim  view 
of  many  of  the  expensive  war- 
materials  ads.  Patriotic  bilge  is 
poured  out  in  profusion:  quotas 
have  been  filled — yes — at  a  hand- 
some profit.  And  too  often  the  ad- 
vertisements themselves  are  the 
unrealistic  dream  of  dithyrambic 
copy  writers  who  have  never  seen 
a  field  of  battle  nor  the  equip- 
ment in  action. 

Propaganda.  Someone  has  elo- 
quently described  propaganda  as 
'the  seepage  from  the  cesspool 
of  decaying  human  thought.'  But 
we  are  not  concerned  here  with 
eloquence.  What  specifically  can 
we  learn  about  the  nature  and 
purpose  of  propaganda? 

We  know  that  it  can  be  effect- 
ive; that  in  the  hands  of  an  'ex- 
pert' it  can  become  a  psycholo- 
gical weapon.  So  powerful  a  de- 
vice had  it  become  to  that  aca- 
demic rodent,  Dr.  Paul  Goebbels 
of  fascist  Germany,  that  an  en- 
tire government  ministry  built 
around  the  propaganda  depart- 
ment served  as  a  nucleus  around 
which  to  assemble  the  most  ela- 
borate organization  of  depraved 
fanaticism  that  any  national  en- 
tity has  paraded  in  all  recorded 
history. 

Propaganda  means  any  system- 
atic body  of  concepts  or  beliefs 
designed  to  influence  a  course  of 


action.  The  intent  to  deceive  may 
or  may  not  be  implied,  but  it  is 
certainly  not  excluded.  That  point 
is  important.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  know  that  a  body  of  facts 
which  have  accrued  from  scienti- 
fic investigation  and  analysis  will 
themselves  decree  a  course  of 
action  without  influence  or  pro- 
motion. The  difference  is  funda- 
mental. 

This  is  specifically  the  differ- 
ence between  the  status  which 
science  enjoys  today  with  its  con- 
cepts solidly  established  in  physi- 
cal laws  and  the  floundering  so- 
cial organization  about  us  which 
is  burdened  with  the  hoary  tradi- 
tions handed  down  through  cen- 
turies of  scarcity  cultures.  The 
lag  between  our  outmoded  ideas 
of  social  operation  and  the  tech- 
nology which  is  crowding  them 
into  eclipse  has  produced  a  situa- 
tion wherein  the  old  ideologies, 
no  matter  how  suitable  they  may 
have  been  in  the  past,  now  func- 
tion as  a  body  of  propaganda  to 
resist  social  change  and  maintain 
the  status  quo.  The  fascist  move- 
ments of  Europe  were  nothing 
more  than  the  old  institutions 
decked  out  in  new  banners  and 
fresh  jargon  in  an  attempt  to  re- 
vamp a  vehicle  of  class  privilege. 
The  purpose  was  to  regain  accep- 
tance from  the  very  slaves  it 
sought  to  victimize. 

Science    deals    only    with    the 


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physical  world  about  us.  The 
language  of  science  has  a  struc- 
tural development  which  corres- 
ponds with  the  physical  world. 
The  word  itself  is  but  a  symbol  of 
the  thing  or  event. 

Our  social  institutions  have  ac- 
cumulated their  language  from 
the  folklore  and  traditions  which 
we  have  inherited  through  cen- 
turies of  time,  and  it  is  replete 
with  ambiguities,  platitudes,  and 
the  hobgoblinry  of  our  aboriginal 
ancestry.  When  language  is  used 
to  perpetuate  that  folklore  in  the 
age  of  science  and  technology  it 
becomes  structurally  spurious 
and  serves  as  a  vehicle  of  propa- 
ganda for  Price  System  organiza- 
tions. Adherence  to  facts  becomes 
of  secondary  consideration  in  the 
campaign  to  force  sales. 

The  prestige  builders  work  con- 
tinually at  top  form,  wallowing  in 
the  great  esteem  which  they 
themselves  report  themselves  to 
be  enjoying — usually  because  of 
a  'long  and  magnificent  record  of 
service.'  In  wartime  they  are  par- 
ticularly vocal.  Patriotic  affirma- 
tions speak  of  their  tremendous 
efforts  and  self-praise  continues 
on  through  charges  of  cartel  fin- 
agling, government  indictments, 
and  court  actions.  The  Truman 
Committee,  for  instance,  exposed 
the  fact  that  one  airplane  corpora- 
tion spent  nearly  $12,500  eulogiz- 
ing a  particular  dive  bomber  at  a 

APRIL,   1945 


tLiie  when  as  yet  it  had  not  de- 
livered a  single  plane  satisfactory 
for  combat.  After  the  storm  blew 
over  the  same  firm  spent  many 
times  that  sum  covering  up  to  the 
public. 

The  travel  agencies  and  resort 
promoters  are  busy  tourist-goug- 
ing with  glowing  accounts  of 
'bland  blue  skies  and  tepid  crys- 
tal waters — soft,  heavy  sand  of 
coral  and  shell  which  rival  the 
colorings  of  a  young  fawn.'  This 
taradiddle  goes  on  and  on,  and 
too  often  the  story  of  trapped 
sewage  and  street-wash,  forming 
turgid  channels  in  the  bathing 
areas,  is  ignored. 

There  are  the  breakfast  food 
ads  whose  appeal  is  directed  to 
the  younger  generation  through 
such  devices  as  big  brother  clubs, 
Mother  Goose  pictorial  appeal, 
and  the  superman  ballyhoo,  while 
the  product  itself  is  often  dena- 
tured to  a  mass  of  cellulose  and 
wind  which  will  snap,  crackle, 
and  make  magic  noises  in  milk. 

Then  there  is  the  well-known 
propaganda  device  known  as  the 
'band-wagon.'  Everybody  is  doing 
it!  Switch  to  my  brand!  They  are 
all  wearing  them  in  the  larger 
centres!  Ask  yourself  a  fair  ques- 
tion! ...  So  what? 

What  copy  writer  has  not  con- 
cocted testimonials?  Mrs.  Wilbur 
J.  Uppington  personally  endors- 
es Super-Scent  skin  lotion.  Doc- 


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tors  advise  tooth  powder  (that's 
powder,  spelled  p-o-w-d-e-r) . 
Mrs.  Oatmellia  Snitch  wants  the 
world  to  know  that  her  liver  is 
again  in  fine  fettle  and  is  excret- 
ing plenty  of  juice  for  that  part 
of  the  digestion  which  takes  place 
below  the  belt.  'Eminent  econom- 
ists' warn  against  new-fangled  ec- 
onomic panaceas.  Eminent  econ- 
omists? Was  it  not  George  Bern- 
ard Shaw  who  made  the  observa- 
tion that  if  all  the  economists 
were  laid  end  to  end  they  would 
not  reach  a  decision? 

Be  smart,  be  thrifty,  deal  with 
Dobbs  and  bank  the  difference. 
Stubbornly  refuse  all  substitutes. 
Save  this  iron  clad  money-back 
guarantee. 

Are  you  not  tired  of  being  ha- 
rangued? Do  you  think  that  you 
can  ever  rid  yourself  sufficiently 
well  of  B.O.,  rashes,  impetigo, 
eczema,  gray  hair,  dandruff,  ca- 
vernous burps,  athlete's  foot, 
hair  in  the  ear,  real  estate  under 
the  finger  nails,  alcoholic  breath, 
sweaty  handshake  (and  all  the 
other  weaknesses  that  the  flesh  is 
heir  to),  so  that  the  ad  writers 
will  be  completely  satisfied.  (Is 
your  intelligence  not  sufficiently 
insulted  at  this  stage,  or  shall  we 
go  on?) 

Now  let  us  consider  seriously 
the  effect  which  this  continual  de- 
luge of  bilge  has  in  moulding  a 
public  behavior  pattern.    The  hu- 


man being  responds  to  its  exter- 
nal environment  through  the  con- 
ditioned reflex  which  is  a  purely 
automatic  but  tremendously  com- 
plex mechanism.  That  which  is 
given  prominence  and  repetition 
will  register  in  the  behavior  of 
people.  Should  we  be  surprised 
then  if  the  North  American  Con- 
tinent develops  a  race  of  reckless 
blowhards — the  American  even 
now  has  a  reputation  for  careless 
overstatement?  Much  of  this  ad- 
vertising twaddle  has  still  another 
effect  upon  our  people.  It  fosters 
a  nit-wit  plebeianism  and  glori- 
fies maudlin  moronity.  Still  other 
types  have  a  frustrating  effect. 
Why  must  our  rural  population 
be  continually  talked  down  to 
when  intelligence-tests  have 
shown  them  to  be  not  less  intelli- 
gent than  city  dwellers  and  in 
many  cases  less  neurotic.  Have 
you  ever  wondered  to  what  limit 
this  advertising  inanity  could  be 
carried? 

Capitalizing  Calamity.  Capita- 
lizing calamity  and  profiting  by 
the  insecurities  that  are  inherent 
in  Price  System  operation  has  be- 
come a  fine  art.  It  has  actually 
become  'good  business'  to  foster 
a  fear  psychosis.  Fires,  floods, 
tornados,  war,  and  death  itself 
are  all  good  for  promotional  ad- 
vertising. Consider  a  case  in 
point.  An  advertisement  placed 
by  a  life  insurance  firm  reads  in 


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part:  'Why  not  drop  in  and  dis- 
cuss plans  for  the  protection  of 
your  beneficiaries?  You  can  as- 
sure your  loved  ones  of  a  regular 
income  whether  or  not  you  are 
here  to  earn  it.  You  can  provide 
funds  to  pay  off  a  mortgage,  give 
your  children  an  education,  en- 
able your  family  to  face  the  fu- 
ture without  fear  of  deprivation. 
Shield  your  widow  against  the 
troubles  and  financial  pitfalls  that 
beset  the  inexperienced.' 

Now  these  are  all  commend- 
able considerations  and  no  one 
but  a  disreputable  skinflint  would 
seek  to  deny  these  protections — 
that  is,  in  an  age  of  scarcity.  But 
this  is  the  Power  Age,  and  this 
advertiser  (and  business  in  gen- 
eral) is  obviously  out  of  step 
with  the  times.  North  America  is 
lavishly  endowed  with  natural  re- 
sources, enough  and  more  to  pro- 
vide every  man,  woman,  and 
child  with  an  abundant  livelihood 
from  birth  to  death.  Therefore, 
what  are  we  seeking  to  protect 
the  beneficiaries  against?  Why 
should  there  be  mortgages?  Why 
is  education  not  a  national  obli- 
gation and  responsibility?  The 
age  of  economic  security  and  a 
high  standard  of  living  for  all 
North  Americans  is  here  if  we 
have  sense  enough  to  grasp  phy- 
sical realities.  No  longer  need 
man  skimp  and  save  during  a 
lifetime  of  drudgery  and  uncer- 


tainty in  order  that  a  pay-off  be 
made  on  the  other  bank  of  the 
river  Styx,  f.o.b.  the  corpse. 

But  we  are  not  through  yet. 
Don't  think  that  because  you  are 
safely  in  a  rough-box  that  the 
danger  has  passed.  The  under- 
taker (who  has  become  a  'morti- 
cian') is  looking  for  customers 
either  before  or  after  rigor  mortis 
has  set  in.  One  advertisement 
goes  so  far  as  to  lay  down  an  item- 
ized list  of  the  services  that  go  to 
make  a  bang-up  show.  Here  is 
what  you  can  have:  a  burial  cas- 
ket selected  from  a  large  range  of 
models,  outer  case,  embalming, 
hearse  service,  newspaper  notices, 
limousine,  personal  attendants,  a 
beautiful  chapel,  and  appropriate 
organ  music.  It's  like  ordering  an 
a  la  carte  breakfast.  Who  would 
not  long  to  pass  over  to  the  other 
shore  when  it  can  be  done  with 
such  pomp  and  ceremony?  No- 
thing has  been  forgotten — unless 
possibly  it  be  a  dark  suit  with  ex- 
tra trousers  for  your  etherial 
wardrobe. 

Free  Enterprise.  This  institu- 
tionalized propaganda  must  be 
appraised  not  only  as  a  display  of 
absurdities  but  as  an  'instrument 
facile'  for  maintaining  the  status 
quo. 

The  business-politico  fraternity 
assure  us  that  the  standard  of 
living  to  which  we  are  accustom- 
ed on  this  Continent  is  attribut- 


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able  purely  to  the  system  which 
they  have  called  'Free  Enter- 
prise,' which  in  turn  rests  upon 
the  'firm  foundation  of  advertis- 
ing.' It  would  be  heresy  to  sug- 
gest that  our  highly  developed 
technology  and  tremendous  na- 
tural resources  are  responsible 
for  our  North  American  standard 
of  living,  not  because  of  the  Price 
System  but  in  spite  of  it — that 
this  standard  could  be  greatly  en- 
hanced if  released  from  the  Price 
System  shackles.  So  we  will  not 
labor  that  point  but  go  back  and 
look  into  the  ramifications  which 
bring  on  this  advertising — 'Free- 
Enterprise'  flirtation. 

As  a  preliminary  we  must  re- 
flect upon  the  fact  that  'Free 
Enterprise'  is  a  comparative  new- 
comer in  the  field  of  Price  Sys- 
tem terminology.  It  was  dreamed 
up  to  replace  the  'Private  Enter- 
prise' of  former  days.  You  see, 
'Private  Enterprise'  dragged  us 
through  ten  years  of  depression 
and  had  a  big  hand  in  bringing 
on  World  War  II.  So  it  was  a  case 
of'  'quench  the  stench'  by  adopt- 
ing new  terminology;  and  adver- 
tising was  the  perfect  chore  boy. 
A  little  teamwork  and  the  job 
could  be  put  over. 

The  war  was  in  progress  and, 
although  two-thirds  of  production 
was  being  accomplished  by  a 
government-owned  or  controlled 
economy,  as  long     as    the    press 


were  well  paid  they  could  be 
called  upon  to  play  footy,  and  the 
whole  production  effort  could  be 
publicized  as  the  successful  oper- 
ation of  'Free  Enterprise.' 

We  are  said  to  be  fighting 
among  other  things,  for  freedom 
of  the  press.  If,  as  advertising 
agencies  assert,  our  press  is  kept 
alive  and  lusty  through  the  ad- 
vertisements from  business,  it 
palpably  is  not  free.  Thus  we 
find  an  explanation  for  the  tre- 
mendous press  campaign  eulogiz- 
ing a  mythical  'Free  Enterprise,' 
for  editorial  and  journalistic 
slanting,  the  reason  for  taboos, 
half-truths,  ballyhoo,  and  news 
distortion.  It  is  all  a  matter  of 
pressure  and  price. 

That  'Free  Enterprise,'  as  ad- 
vertised, is  either  'free'  or  'enter- 
prising' is  as  phony  as  the  line  of 
the  snake-oil  vendor  peddling  his 
hair  restorer  and  his  elixir  of 
youth  in  the  days  of  the  caravan 
and  the  frontier  town  fairs. 

In  spite  of  trick  labels  the 
Price  System,  whose  tenets  are 
at  variance  with  the  trend  of  the 
times,  is  due  for  the  discard.  The 
impact  of  technological  progres- 
sion is  writing  finis  to  Price  Sys- 
tem operation. 

In  the  Technate  our  present 
Price  System  advertising  will 
seem  like  the  bad  dream  of  a  mad 
copy  writer.  — C.  Warren  Lowes 


10 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


The  Birthplace  of  the  Future 


We  need  now  to  have  the  school  teachers  and  the  ministers  and  the 
editors  .  .  .  also  know  that  changes  are  inevitable,  so  that  our  social 
system  can  be  adjusted  to  keep  pace  with  these  fantastic  advances 
of  science.  — Dr.  Gerald  Wendt 


WE  face  within  five  years 
after  the  end  of  the  war,  a 
second  industrial  revolution,  and 
it  is  none  too  early  to  start  think- 
ing about  it.  In  the  first  indus- 
trial revolution,  we  replaced  hu- 
man muscle  by  the  power  of  en- 
gines— steam,  electricity,  oil. 
Now,  we  face  an  era  when  we 
can  replace  and  are  replacing  hu- 
man senses  by  electronic  instru- 
ments that  are  better.  When  that 
goes  to  its  limit — we  shall  never 
quite  have  automatic  factories 
but  we  shall  have  factories  that 
are  much  more  automatic  than 
any  of  them  now  are,  or  at  least 
any  of  them  that  can  be  talked 
about. 

I  believe  we  shall  run  into  a 
lot  of  trouble  unless  we  recognize 
that  in  advance.  I  should  like 
very  much  to  discuss  this  subject 
with  the  labour  unions  because  I 
think  the  labour  people  are  the 
first  who  need  to  learn  that  our 
salvation  after  the  war  is  maxi- 
mum    possible     production,  irre- 


Excerpt  from  a  speech  by  Dr.  Gerald 
Wrendt,  science  department,  Time,  Life, 
and  Fortune,  Dec.  28,  1944. 

APRIL,   1945 


spective  of  anything.  We  can 
easily  increase  agricultural  pro- 
duction in  this  country,  with  no 
new  research  at  all.  We  can. in- 
crease our  industrial  production, 
too.  Perhaps  we  can  even  in- 
crease it  above  these  wartime 
levels,  by  the  use  of  the  electronic 
instruments  for  supervision  and 
control — automatic  instruments 
of  all  kinds.  If  we  do,  we  shall 
produce  more  and  more  goods 
with  less  and  less  labour. 

Gentlemen,  I  am  not  advocat- 
ing this  any  more  than  I  advocat- 
ed television.  I  am  telling  you 
what  I  think  is  the  meaning  of 
the  news,  for  your  careful 
thought.  Yet  this  is  not  a  de- 
crease in  wealth,  but  an  increase, 
and  so  as  a  scientist,  I  must  wel- 
come it.  More  and  more  produc- 
tion with  less  and  less  labour, 
more  wealth  with  less  work.  Do 
not  let  it  burst  upon  you  five 
years  from  now  and  blame  who- 
ever is  president  then. 

Automatic  factories  must  not 
be  allowed  to  cut  down  the  num- 
ber of  jobs.  We  shall  have  sev- 
eral alternatives:  one,  to  produce 


11 


more  than  we  need  and  give  it 
away  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 
That  sounds  silly,  but  if  it  could 
be  related  to  the  maintenance  of 
peace,  it  would  be  a  good  invest- 
ment. Another  way  is  just  to 
'plow  it  under.'  The  third  way  is, 
of  course,  to  reduce  working 
hours.  A  great  problem  of  econ- 
omics is  involved  here,  and  I  am 
not  an  economist;  so  I  don't  want 
to  go  into  it  more  deeply.  But  I 
do  think  some  of  you  ought  to 
foresee  the  day  when  industry 
will  use  machines — not  to  pro- 
duce more,  but  to  save  time.  A 
machine  is  a  device  for  produc- 
ing more  goods  in  less  time.  Here- 
tofore, we  have  always  needed 
more  goods.  If  we  have  saved 
any  time  we  have  reinstated  that 
time  in  producing  more  goods  for 
sale. 

I  think  the  time  is  bound  to 
come,  when  we  are  going  to  use 
machines  not  to  make  more  goods, 
not  to  earn  more  dollars,  but  to 
earn  something  more  valuable — 
time  to  live.  I  may  not  live  to 
see  the  day,  but  time  to  live  as  a 
general  product  of  industry  for 
all  of  our  American  citizens,  is  in 
the  cards.  At  least  it  is  among  the 
possibilities,  and  the  alternative 
to  it  is  chaos. 

Science  has  taken  a  great  spurt 
ahead.    All    these    scientists    are 


working  to  make  more  profit, 
more  goods,  but  in  the  end  the 
goods  change  our  habits.  The  final 
result  of  all  this  science  is  social 
change  and  there  is  nothing  re- 
markable about  that.  Change  is  a 
part  of  the  order  of  nature.  There 
was  a  time  when  there  wasn't 
any  earth;  no  people  on  it,  no 
animals.  In  the  course  of  time, 
change  has  come.  But,  heretofore, 
change  has  always  been  slow. 
Within  the  past  generation,  with 
the  organization  of  research  labo- 
ratories, we  have  speeded  up  the 
processes  of  change.  You  in  the 
industries  represented  here  to- 
right,  are  as  ea<*er  as  anyone  to 
change  consuming  habits  and 
purchasing  habits  of  the  public. 
You  thereby  change  the  living 
habits  of  the  public,  too.  We  need 
now  to  have  the  school  teachers 
and  the  ministers  and  the  editors 
and  the  congressmen  also  know 
that  changes  are  inevitable,  so 
that  our  social  system  can  be  ad- 
justed to  keep  pace  with  these 
fantastic  advances  of  science.  I 
am  very  much  in  earnest  about 
some  of  these  things.  I  hope  here- 
after you  will  not  flip  over  the  sci- 
ence page  in  the  papers  and  mag- 
azines when  you  come  to  it  but 
will  take  a  look  at  it.  There  is  the 
birthplace  of  the  future. 

—Dr.  Gerald  Wendt 


12 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


wm   Bra         &H 


I        IKS 


Gleaned  from  the  Research  Files 

Every  technological  advance  is  an  example  of  a  problem  solved  by 
the  engineering  approach.  When  are  North  Americans  going  to 
apply  the  engineering  approach  to  the  solution  of  their  social  prob- 
lems? 


NEWS  items  of  technological 
developments  in  North  Am- 
erica clearly  indicate  how  quick- 
ly problems  yield  to  solution 
when  the  engineering  method  is 
used. 

Developing  efficiency  in  produc- 
tion is  one  field  in  which  the  sci- 
entists, technologists,  and  engin- 
eers have  been  allowed  to  bring 
great  benefits  to  our  Continent. 
The  few  examples  which  follow 
serve  to  show  how  problems  are 
solved  by  the  simple  process  of 
determining  all  the  facts,  and  let- 
ting those  facts  supply  their  own 
conclusions. 

In  railroading  many  new  de- 
vices and  new  practices  have 
been  developed  in  recent  years  to 
speed  the  transit  of  goods  and 
passengers  from  one  place  to  an- 
other. Besides  making  the  tran- 
sit faster  and  safer,  ways  have 
been  found  to  move  more  tons 
and  more  passengers  more  miles 
with  less  fuel,  and  with  fewer 
man-hours  of  employment  on  the 
railroads.  Two  examples  of  rail- 
road technology  will  point  the 
trend. 

One  of  the  slowest  railroad  jobs 

APRIL,  1945 


once  was  that  of  making  up  com- 
plete trains  from  the  long  strings 
of  mixed  cars  that  came  to  the 
central  marshalling  yards  from 
all  the  feeder  lines  and  all  the 
freight  sidings.  Almost  everyone 
is  familiar  with  the  picture  of  the 
locomotive  slowly  chugging  back 
and  forth,  sending  cars  down 
various  lines  of  track  where  each 
makes  loud  and  violent  collision 
with  those  cars  already  in  place. 
That  same  slow  method  was  used 
until  a  few  years  ago  even  in  the 
largest  yards. 

To  reduce  the  locomotive-hours 
and  man-hours  required  to  make 
up  trains  the  car-hump  was  de- 
veloped. Humping  is  a  method  of 
making  up  many  trains  simul- 
taneously by  pushing  strings  of 
cars  up  one  side  of  a  grade  and 
switching  each  car  on  to  its  al- 
loted  track  as  the  car  rolls  down 
the  other  side  of  the  grade.  This 
method  proved  to  be  a  great 
saver  of  time,  fuel,  and  labor, 
even  when  each  car  down  the 
slope  had  to  be  ridden"  by  a  man 
whose  job  it  was  to  apply  the 
brakes  to  ease  the  jolt  when  the 
fast     rolling     car     smacked     up 


13 


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against  the  end  of  the  line  of 
starting  cars  already  sent  down. 

Now  the  operation  of  the  hump 
has  been  improved  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  only  three  men  are  re- 
quired to  handle  the  job.  By 
manipulating  tiny  levers  on  a 
desk,  the  operators  in  the  hump 
tower  can  operate  mechanical  re- 
tarders  which  slow  or  stop  the 
cars  as  required,  and  so  ease  the 
jolt  that  the  danger  of  impact  has 
been  practically  eliminated.  The 
same  operators,  by  remote  con- 
trol, can  manipulate  all  the 
switches  on  the  make-up  tracks. 

With  two  men  in  the  tower  and 
one  man  pulling  the  couplings  of 
the  cars  as  they  come  to  the  top 
of  the  hump,  100  cars  can  be 
handled  in  25  minutes,  and  thirty- 
five  trains  can  be  made  up  simul- 
taneously. 

Another  increase  in  railroading 
efficiency  has  been  achieved  by 
the  use  of  Centralized  Traffic 
Control,  better  known  as  CTC. 
This  is  a  method  by  which  trains 
can  operate  without  written  ord- 
ers, being  governed  entirely  by 
the  signals  and  switches  electric- 
ally controlled  from  the  central 
control  station.  Under  the  CTC 
single  track  lines  have  been  made 
to  handle  30  percent  more  traffic 
than  formerly.  By  the  use  of  by- 
pass tracks  two  trains  going  in 
opposite  directions  on  a  single 
track  are  able  to  pass  each  other 


14 


without  either  of  them  stopping. 

In  strategically  situated  control 
stations  along  the  rail  lines  the 
relative  position  of  every  train  is 
shown  on  an  electrically  illumin- 
ated diagram  of  the  entire  rail 
lay-out.  By  means  of  levers  on 
his  desk  the  operator  can  control 
all  the  signals  and  switches  in  his 
sector,  switching,  slowing,  and 
clearing  trains  so  as  to  keep  most 
of  the  traffic  moving  most  of  the 
time.  The  control  mechanism  is 
so  designed  that  the  signals  can- 
not be  set  contrary  to  the 
switches.  Centralized  Traffic  Con- 
trol has  already  been  installed  on 
about  5000  miles  of  track,  and 
much  more  is  scheduled  for  con- 
version. 

Meanwhile,  a  similar  trend  con- 
tinues also  in  all  departments  of 
communications.  For  example, 
the  employment  of  telephone  op- 
erators has  become  more  and 
more  precarious  as  the  installa- 
tion of  automatic  telephones  has 
swept  across  the  Continent.  In 
the  areas  served  by  the  automa- 
tics, only  the  interexchange  and 
long  distance  calls  have  given 
employment  to  those  operators 
who  survived  the  advent  of  the 
dial  method. 

Now  a  method  of  automatic 
recording  has  been  proved  by  a 
year's  operation  in  California;  it 
makes  the  employment  of  opera- 
tors    unnecessary     on     interex- 

TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


■I 


change  and  long  distance  calls. 

The  machines  automatically 
print  the  number  of  the  sub- 
scriber dialing  a  call,  the  number 
called,  and  the  date  and  duration 
of  the  call.  In  its  one  year  of  test 
operation,  this  method  has  been 
so  successful  that  Southern  Cali- 
fornia Telephone  Co.  is  reported 
to  be  planning  to  convert  its  en- 
tire system  in  the  Los  Angeles 
metropolitan  area  to  toll  dialing 
as  soon  as  possible. 

In  the  services,  too,  the  trend 
is  towards  less  and  less  employ- 
ment per  unit  of  output.  For 
large  restaurants  and  cafeterias  a 
new  time  saver  has  been  devel- 
oped— a  sandwich  making  ma- 
chine which  can  produce  3500 
sandwiches  per  hour.  On  this 
machine  sliced  bread  is  fed  down 
a  hopper  onto  a  conveyer,  trav- 
els along  the  conveyer  to  pick  up 
its  load  of  cheese,  jam,  meat- 
paste,  etc.,  and  then  under  an- 
other hopper  to  pick  up  the  top 
slice,  as  it  leaves  the  machine. 
An  attendant  is  required  only  to 
keep  the  machine  supplied  with 
filling  material  and  bread. 

Also  available  for  restaurants 
is  a  new  style  automatic  rotary 
cooker.  It  automatically  times  the 
cooking  periods  for  steaks,  chops, 
and  fluid  foods  by  means  of  ro- 
tary discs,  which  turn  at  con- 
stant speed  through  a  five-min- 
ute  cycle.   Except   for   the   small 


serving  shelf  at  one  side  the  ma- 
chine takes  little  more  floor 
space  than  the  ordinary  home 
washing  machine.  Food  cooked  to 
the  exact  minute  is  delivered 
automatically  to  a  conveyer  at 
the  side  of  the  machine. 

For  machine  shops  a  new  and 
faster  type  of  gear  cutter  or  gear 
shaper  has  been  developed.  This 
new  tool  cuts  all  the  teeth  in  a 
gear  simultaneously.  In  opera- 
tion the  gear  blank  is  moved  up 
and  down  inside  the  multiple 
cutters.  Each  time  up,  the  cutter 
teeth  bite  deeper  and  deeper  in- 
to the  blank,  stopping  automati- 
cally when  the  correct  depth  has 
been  made.  Once  the  proper  set- 
up has  been  reached  the  entire 
process  is  automatic,  except  for 
placing  of  the  gear-blank  on  the 
holder.  On  the  holder  the  blank 
is  automatically  clamped  and  the 
work  begins. 

The  gear  cutting  tool  is  adjust- 
able to  cut  as  many  teeth  as  each 
gear  requires,  to  any  required 
depth.  A  51-tooth  gear  4  inches 
in  diameter  and  one  inch  across 
the  face  can  be  cut  in  less  than 
one  minute.  Models  of  this  gear 
shaper  are  being  developed  to 
cut  various  sizes  of  gears. 

Even  in  our  tradition-bound 
armories  we  see  the  effect  of  our 
North  American  trends  towards 
greater  mechanization  and  less 
employment.  Typical  are  the  re- 


APRIL,   1945 


15 


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cent  changes  in  the  packing  room 
of  the  Springfield  Armory.  In 
that  packing  room  18  men  now 
do  the  work  which  formerly  re- 
quired 48  men  —  packing  the 
rifles  for  shipment.  Mechanized 
methods  have  replaced  the  stop- 
and-go  handlings,  and  an  im- 
proved technique  has  replaced 
the  old  hand  greasing  operation 
with  mechanical  greasing.  And 
the  new  method  requires  only 
one  third  the  space  of  the  old! 

Just  to  point  the  trend  in  the 
ever  declining  amortization 
period  of  investments  in  techno- 
logical  improvements  —  the 
money  savings  were  so  great  that 
the  armory  was  able  to  pay  off 
the  change-over  cost  of  $8,000  in 
only  40  days! 

This  trend  towards  greater 
mechanization  and  automaticity 
of  all  processes  constantly  devel- 
ops greater  productivity  per  man- 
hour  of  employment.  No  phase  of 
industrial  activity  is  immune  to 
this  trend.  Constantly  the  scien- 
tist, technologist,  and  engineer 
seek  to  increase  efficiency.  Thus 
we  find  devices  and  changes  be- 
ing engineered  to  eliminate  the 
more  laborious  jobs  of  those  who 
engineer  devices  and  changes  to 
eliminate  jobs. 

Typical  of  such  devices  and 
changes  are  the  two  new  'mech- 
anical brains'  which  have  been 
recently    put    into    use.    One    of 


these,  the  'differential  analyzer,' 
is  used  in  one  of  the  General 
Electric  engineering  offices.  This 
analyzer  can  quickly  solve  prob- 
lems that  would  require  months 
of  mathematical  work  by  engin- 
eering staffs.  Fourteen  separate 
operations  on  complex  differen- 
tial equations  can  be  handled 
simultaneously  and  automatically 
by  this  new  time  saver. 

The  other  'brain'  is  the  mech- 
anical robot  at  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, the  machine  which  Harvard 
describes  as  the  world's  'greatest 
mathematical  calculating  ma- 
chine'. 

This  machine  termed  a  'colos- 
sal gadget'  by  Time  Magazine,  is 
reported  to  be  capable  of  even 
wider  mathematical  use  than 
General  Electric's  analyzer.  The 
fifty-foot  panel  of  switches,  wires, 
and  gears  contains  about  3,000,- 
000  electrical  connections  and  500 
miles  of  wire.  It  is  claimed  to  be 
capable  of  making  practically  any 
mathematical  calculation  required 
by  any  branch  of  science. 

A  problem  that  was  solved  by 
four  operators  working  for  three 
weeks  with  ordinary  office  cal- 
culators has  been  duplicated  by 
Harvard's  machine  in  19  hours. 
It  multiplies  in  six  seconds;  adds 
or  subtracts  in  one  third  of  a  sec- 
ond; solves  algebraic  equations; 
gets  answers  accurate  to  23  places 
— and  stores  up  the  answers  for 


16 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


future  use  in  similar  problems. 
When  the  machine  makes  an 
error  it  automatically  stops.  Com- 
mander Aiken,  the  inventor, 
claims  his  machine  has  already 
exposed  several  miscalculations 
in  a  formula  which  has  been 
standard  for  years. 

These  and  many  others  could 


be  cited  as  examples  of  problems 
solved  by  the  engineering  ap- 
proach. They  could  be  cited,  too, 
as  evidence  that  the  only 
problems  which  do  not  yield  to 
solution  are  those  from  which  the 
engineering  approach  is  carefully 
excluded. 

— Research  Committee,  12349-1 


Technology  in  Transportation 


BETTER  RIDING  CONDITIONS  for  freight  equipment  and  im- 
proved heat  control  for  dining  cars  is  being  provided  by  the 
company  through  application  of  stabilized  trucks  to  300  freight  re- 
frigerator cars,  spring  snubbers  to  1,500  other  freight  cars  and  con- 
version from  manually-controlled  heat  to  a  thermostatic  system  in  16 
dining  cars. 

This  work,  being  done  at  Angus  Shops,  Montreal,  is  only  a  part 
of  the  continuing  program  by  which  the  company  is  bringing  all  of  its 
existing  cars  up  to  the  standard  of  the  new  cars  which  are  being  added 
whenever  war  conditions  permit. 

The  stabilized  trucks  which  are  being  put  on  'reefers'  under- 
going general  shopping  take  out  vertical  shocks  and  the  roller  de- 
vices, which  are  part  of  the  trucks,  eliminate  a  good  part  of  the  lateral 
oscillations.  So  far  194  cars  in  the  order  have  been  given  this  settle- 
ment to  provide  smooth  riding  for  easily  damaged  fruits,  vegetables 
and  other  perishable  traffic. 

The  spring  snubbers  for  freight  cars  go  on  coal  and  gondola  cars 
as  well  as  box  cars  and  the  1,500  freight  cars  of  all  types  on  last  year's 
program  were  so  fitted. 

In  the  diners  the  newly  added  thermostatic  heat  control  will 
simplify  the  maintenance  of  uniform  temperature  in  the  dining  room 
when  doors  are  opened  in  cold  weather.  There  will  be  no  drafts  along 
the  floor  since  the  heat  in  the  passageway  also  will  be  automatically 
controlled.  — Canadian  Pacific  Staff  Bulletin 


APRIL,    1945 


17 


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n  \/\£.i'\  motel  '  B^l 


The  W  Concoction 


In  the  evolution  of  the  modern  Price  System,  all  theories  of  political 
policy  and  political  philosophy  become  more  antiquated  daily  as 
technology   pervades   the   operation   of   any   national   economy. 

— Howard  Scott 
(continued  from  last  month) 


THE  CCF  compromises  with 
the  Price  System,  while 
Technocracy  is  as  uncompromis- 
ing as  the  advance  of  technology. 

In  his  article  on  the  CCF  and 
its  national  leader  Major  James 
Coldwell  in  the  August  4,  1944 
issue  of  Collier's,  Frank  Gervasi 
stated:  'But  coalition  means  com- 
promise, and  Coldwell  hates  the 
word,  or  so  he  indicated  to  me.' 
Coldwell  and  the  CCF  may  not 
compromise  with  other  political 
groups,  but  the  entire  program  of 
the  party  is  a  compromise  to  start 
with. 

Technocracy  takes  its  stand 
that  the  CCF  is  merely  a  political 
party  with  a  mildly  radical  pro- 
gram which  makes  concessions  to 
those  who  are  in  favor  of  social 
reform  while  compromising  with 
the  upholders  of  the  status  quo. 
The  CCF  proposes  to  nationalize 
the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway 
(the  other  great  railroad  system 
in  Canada  is  already  national- 
ized) and  the  war  industries; 
some  utilities  and  industries  will 
be  operated  on  a  provincial  basis; 
others  will  be  taken  over  by  the 


municipalities.  Retail  trade  is  to 
be  handled  by  cooperatives.  And 
along  with  all  of  this,  private  en- 
terprise is  to  carry  on  in  certain 
industries  (the  political  oppon- 
ents of  the  CCF  have  already 
made  such  capital  of  the  CCF 
policy  with  regard  to  farming 
that  it  is  unnecessary  to  elaborate 
on  this  point).  This  reformist 
concoction  of  nationalization,  co- 
operatives, and  private  enterprise 
will  never  solve  the  problems  of 
Canada,  yet  at  the  same  time  it 
is  a  sufficient  departure  from  the 
platforms  of  the  old-line  parties 
to  enlist  the  support  of  many 
Canadians  as  the  only  political 
outlet  for  their  social  aspirations. 
(Let  it  be  emphasized  here  that 
Technocracy  is  not  singling  out 
the  CCF  as  an  antagonist  nor  will 
we  ever  get  down  on  the  floor 
with  them  in  anything  resembling 
the  present  political  brawl  be- 
tween them  and  the  Labor-Pro- 
gressive Party.  We  are  only  clari- 
fying Technocracy's  position  and 
demonstrating  that  Technocracy 
has  no  desire  to  be  classified  in 
the  same  status  as  the  CCF.  When 


18 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


r 


they  claim  that  their  program  is 
the  same  as  ours  and  infer  that 
we  should  support  them  at  the 
polls,  we  must  reject  their  amor- 
ous embrace.  Technocracy  re- 
fuses to  accept  the  'kiss  of  death' 
which  is  offered  in  the  CCF  ap- 
peal.) 

Their  alleged  'Total  Conscrip- 
tion' program — which  they  main- 
tain is  the  same  as  that  of  Tech- 
nocracy— is  a  clearcut  example  of 
the  CCF  capacity  for  compromise. 

Technocracy's  position  is  this: 
we  categorically  deny  that  the 
CCF  has  ever  proposed  the  Total 
Conscription  of  all  manpower,  all 
industry,  all  private  enterprise, 
all  resources,  all  equipment,  etc. 
We  challenge  the  CCF  to  show  in 
any  of  their  official  literature 
where  any  such  program  is  enun- 
ciated. They  refer  constantly  to 
their  pamphlet,  For  Victory  and 
Reconstruction,  as  a  statement  of 
CCF  policy  with  regard  to  the 
war  effort.  A  careful  examin- 
ation of  this  pamphlet  fails  to  re- 
veal a  demand  for  Total  Con- 
scription in  any  precise  and 
measurable  terms  which  would 
mean  anything  or  be  binding 
upon  any  political  party. 

The  pamphlet  uses  the  phrase, 
'mobilizing  every  resource  of  hu- 
man and  material  power  regard- 
less of  property  rights  and  privi- 
leges.' The  word  mobilizing  in 
this  sense  is  entirely  meaningless. 

APRIL,   1945 


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For  instance,  the  nation  is  mobi- 
lizing its  freight  cars  to  move  the 
war  freight  loads,  but  this  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  con- 
scription of  the  freight  cars. 

The  CCF  lists  the  following  ob- 
jectives: (1)  Mobilization  for 
Total  War;  (2)  Democratic  con- 
trol of  industry;  (3)  Adequate 
assistance  for  agriculture  and 
fisheries;  (4)  Social  justice;  (5) 
A  democratic  military  policy. 
The  final  point  merely  demon- 
strates the  vagueness  of  these  so- 
called  objectives,  for  a  demo- 
cratic military  policy  is  an  utter 
impossibility.  No  army  in  history 
ever  has  or  ever  will  be  operated 
along  democratic  lines.  Nor  has 
any  nation's  military  policy  been 
determined  through  democratic 
procedure. 

With  regard  to  industry,  the 
CCF  program  plainly  advocates 
'a  100%  tax  on  all  profits  in  ex- 
cess of  4%  on  capital  actually  in- 
vested.' This  is  clearly  an  ad- 
mission that  private  enterprise 
would  still  be  doing  business  at 
the  same  old  stand;  instead  of 
conscription  of  industry,  they 
advocate  'at  least  complete  gov- 
ernment control.' 

Under  the  heading  of  man- 
power, the  CCF  program  merely 
calls  for  'a  carefully  planned  use 
of  our  manpower.'  This  means 
nothing  whatever. 

Another  of  their  clauses  urges 


19 


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enactment  of  legislation  which 
will  'enforce  collective  bargain- 
ing.' If  labor  unions  are  to  have 
collective  bargaining,  there  must 
be  someone  for  them  to  bargain 
with.  Thus,  the  CCF  apparently 
still  contemplates  having  private 
corporations. 

For  agriculture,  there  is  no 
mention  whatever  of  the  con- 
scription of  agricultural  resources. 
Instead  the  CCF  plainly  implies 
that  farming  is  to  be  maintained 
on  its  present  haphazard  basis 
with  'a  revision  of  the  price  ceil- 
ing policy.' 

In  short,  Technocracy  can  com- 
pletely rebuff  the  CCF  contention 
that  they  have  proposed  anything 
which  approaches  a  Total  Con- 
scription program.  Their  program 
is  merely  a  set  of  sentimental  fal- 
lacies which  always  wind  up  as 
compromises  with  the  system 
they  profess  to  oppose. 

The  CCF  made  its  stickiest 
compromise  when  it  entered  the 
dismal  swamps  of  Quebec  politics 
in  an  attempt  to  capture  political 
support  at  all  costs. 

Confirmation  of  this  appeared 
in  an  astounding  revelation  pub- 
lished in  the  Montreal  Gazette, 
October  21,  1943.  We  quote: 

'An  official  declaration  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  issued 
yesterday  following  the  plenary 
council  of  archbishops  and  bis- 
hops held    in    Quebec  City    last 


week,  pronounces  that  "the  faith- 
ful are  free  to  support  any  politi- 
cal party  upholding  the  basic 
christian  traditions  of  Canada  and 
favoring  needed  reforms  in  the 
social  and  economic  order." 

'The  declaration  .  .  .  was  inter- 
preted by  The  Canadian  Register, 
recognized  Catholic  weekly,  as 
making  it  "quite  clear  that  Catho- 
lics have  the  same  liberty  of  sup- 
porting the  CCF  as  the  older 
parties."  The  bishops  reiterated 
their  condemnation  of  .  .  .revolu- 
tionary socialism  which  is  mater- 
ialistic in  its  philosophy,  (and) 
which  denies  the  right  of  private 
property.  .  .  .' 

The  last  paragraph  quoted  a- 
bove  in  regard  to  private  property 
is  particularly  significant  in  that 
it  is  specifically  directed  against 
Communism  and  specifically 
clears  the  CCF  of  any  designs 
against  private  property.  This  de- 
claration of  the  Roman  Catholic 
hierarchy  of  Quebec  in  favor  of 
the  CCF  was  accepted  and  wel- 
comed publicly  by  the  CCF  lead- 
ers, thus  constituting  an  open  ad- 
mission that  the  CCF  is  merely 
another  liberal  political  party  and 
that  it  is  in  favor  of  the  status  quo 
of  private  enterprise  and  private 
property  with  slight  modifications 
and  reforms.  This  places  it  in  the 
same  category  as  the  Labor-Pro- 
gressives, the  Liberals,  and  the 
Progressive-Conservatives.        We 


20 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


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add  once  again  that  these  advo- 
cates of  the  'status  woe'  are  now 
shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  mud 
of  the  last  ditch. 

Being  based  upon  what  each 
party  thinks  the  public  wants, 
every  political  platform  is  neces- 
sarily a  compromise.  Secretary 
David  Lewis  frankly  admitted 
this  at  the  eighth  CCF  national 
convention  (held  in  Montreal, 
end  of  November,  1944)  when  he 
stated  that  in  helping  draft  the 
points  of  a  Federal  manifesto  he 
was  'concerned  with  winning  an 
election.' 

The  Technate  is  not  a  platform 
or  a  manifesto.  It  was  not  arrived 
at  through  discussion,  debate,  or 
argument.  It  is  the  next  most 
probable  social  operation  in 
North  America.  Science  (once 
the  Technical  Alliance  and  now 
Technocracy)  has  determined  it 
from  the  technological  trends  and 
economic  processes  taking  place 
on  this  Continent. 

The  physical  factors  of  our 
North  American  civilization  after 
the  war  will  dictate  certain  treat- 
ment which  must  conform  to  im- 
mutable physical  law.  If  these 
dictates  are  not  heeded  the  end- 
product  will  be  the  annihilation 
of  the  majority  of  the  population. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  a  new  oper- 
ating technic  is  applied  (the 
method  of  social  engineering, 
which  will  conform     to     physical 

APRIL,  1945 


law),  the  population  of  this  Con- 
tinent will  not  only  survive,  but 
will  exist  upon  a  much  higher 
physical  plane  than  in  all  previ- 
ous times  has  ever  been  possible. 

While  some  of  the  situations 
which  will  materialize  in  the 
Technate  may  happen  to  be  en- 
tirely to  our  liking,  these  situ- 
ations or  end-products  are  only 
incidental  and  not  the  motives  or 
basic  considerations  for  Technoc- 
racy's synthesis.  Technocracy  is 
not  working  for  'the  "good"  of 
the  human  race.'  Technocracy 
has  designed  its  blueprint  to  con- 
form to  immutable  physical  law 
because  this  is  the  only  approach 
that  can  function  and  thereby 
continue  the  survival  of  the  North 
American  population.  The  end- 
results  (or  'good'  things  that  will 
eventuate)  are  coincidental,  and, 
depending  upon  personal  opinion, 
'good'  or  'bad.'  Likewise,  Tech- 
nocracy's motives  are  not  a  mat- 
ter of  'selfishness'  or  'unselfish- 
ness,' but  a  matter  of  survival. 

Consequently,  it  would  be  sui- 
cidal for  Technocracy  to  change 
various  features  of  the  Technate 
to  suit  a  majority  of  the  people, 
the  way  the  politician  does  with 
his  platform.  Technocracy  can 
make  no  compromise-^any  com- 
promise must  be  on  the  part  of 
the  citizens  of  this  Continent. 
They  must  move  towards  it,  not 
it  towards  them. 


21 


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Mass  production  must  be  fol- 
lowed by  mass  consumption  and 
mass  leisure.  The  trend  is  uni- 
directional and  irreversible.  It 
makes  no  difference  if  you  hap- 
pen to  think  that  an  abundance 
of  goods  and  services  would  be 
'bad'  for  people,  or  if  you  think 
that  too  much  leisure  will  lead  to 
'degeneration.'  We  shall  have 
both  abundance  and  leisure — 
whether  we  like  them  or  not. 


Technocracy  differs  from  any 
political  party  or  social  reform 
movement  (such  as  the  CCF)  in 
the  same  way  that  science  differs 
from  philosophy.  Its  avoidance  of 
philosophic  judgments,  moralistic 
designations,  and  subjective  mat- 
ters of  opinion  and  its  objective 
emphasis  upon  physical  things, 
make  it  unique  in  man's  history 
as  a  body  of  social  analysis  and 
synthesis.  — Donald  Bruce 


Destroying  War  Surpluses 


OTTAWA,  Feb.  20. — War  Assets  Corporation,  the  Crown  company 
which  handles  the  disposal  of  surplus  war  materials,  is  perfecting 
plans  for  the  removal  of  war  surpluses  from  motor  car  plants  which 
have  been  on  exclusive  war  production  to  enable  them  to  make  a 
quick  switch  back  to  peacetime  production. 

This  was  disclosed  in  an  address  by  J.  B.  Carswell,  War  Assets 
Corporation  chief,  before  the  semi-annual  conference  of  the  Canadian 
Weekly  Newspapers  Association. 

Mr.  Carswell  estimated  that  possibly  as  much  as  75  percent  of 
Canada's  war  goods  will  have  to  be  destroyed  when  the  war  ends. 

He  said  that  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  obsolete  training  aircraft 
would  have  to  be  destroyed,  although  the  layman  might  feel  there 
was  something  of  value  in  them. 

He  explained  that  the  1000-horsepower  motors  in  the  aircraft,  for 
instance,  now  were  obsolete  for  aircraft  purposes  and  were  manu- 
factured of  so  many  metals  that  they  were  unsuitable  to  be  thrown 
into  the  melting  pot  again.  Destruction  was  the  only  way  in  which 
they  could  be  salvaged. 

Salvageable  materials  would  be  reduced  to  ingots  in  open  hearth 
furnaces.  Ships  would  take  vast  quantities  of  explosives  out  to  sea 
to  dump  them  into  the  oceans.  — Canadian  Press 


22 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


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The  Crusades  for  International  Salvation 

North  America,  according  to  the  Sons  of  Mary  of  business  and 
politics,  must  carry  on  a  crusade  to  free  the  world  from  want,  in 
order  to  have  business  prosper  at  home  and  abroad  and  to  create 
a  Continental  scarcity. 


NATIONAL  welfare  in  Cana- 
da and  United  States  in  the 
last  five  years  has  almost  been 
drowned  out  of  existence  in  the 
flood  of  internationalism  and  the 
deluge  of  magnanimous  humani- 
tarianism  of  world  charity.  Ex- 
hortations pour  forth  in  the  peri- 
odicals of  our  press  and  in  our 
more  enlightened  journals  of 
liberal  public  opinion,  all  alike 
proclaiming  that  the  people  of 
North  America  must  think  in 
global  terms.  Our  political  lead- 
ership enunciates  portentous  pro- 
nouncements that  'want  and  pov- 
erty anywhere  in  the  world  are 
a  threat  to  prosperity  everywhere 
in  the  world.' 

The  nation  is  deluged  with 
thousands  of  postwar  plans  by 
the  press  and  literature,  each  and 
every  one  booming  out  high 
sounding  idealism  for  a  glorious 
prosperity  all  over  the  world 
everywhere  but  at  home.  'Glo- 
baloney'  thinking  on  the  part  of 
our  leaders  of  private  enterprise 
and  party  politics  has  reached  the 
stage  of  dementia  psychosis,  a 
psychosis  of  internationalism,  in 
an  attempt  at  sublimation  of  their 

APRIL,  1945 


defeatism  at  home. 

No  political  party  in  Canada  or 
United  States  is  realistically  fac- 
ing the  problems  of  this  Contin- 
ent of  today  and  tomorrow.  Their 
political  programs  flare  forth  in 
glowing  terms  of  vague  interna- 
tionalism, consuming  endless 
words  in  describing  their  version 
of  the  relationship  of  their  North 
American  entity  to  the  world  at 
large   and   its   foreign   policies. 

The  grandiose  proposals  of  Uni- 
ted States,  Canada,  and  Great 
Britain  of  course  include  all  of 
the  United  Nations  and,  when  the 
war  is  won,  all  the  other  nations 
of  the  globe.  Everybody  every- 
where is  going  to  be  free  from 
want  and  fear.  Canada  and  Uni- 
ted States  are  the  chief  propon- 
ents of  this  doctrine,  with  United- 
States  leading  the  procession. 

A  thousand  years  ago  men  of 
the  nations  of  Western  Europe, 
whipped  into  a  state  of  magnifi- 
cent idealism,  streamed  eastward 
as  valiant  crusaders  to  rescue  the 
holy  sepulcher  from  the  hated  in- 
fidel. Today  the  driving  force  of 
partisan  clericalism  is  not  great 
enough  to  create  crusades  against 


23 


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the  infidel  ....  The  people  of 
Canada  and  United  States  are  be- 
ing indoctrinated  with  continuous 
propaganda  that  the  future  se- 
curity of  United  States  and  Ca- 
nada and  the  Continent  of  North 
America  is  entirely  dependent 
upon  a  greater  world  trade,  a 
world  security,  a  world  police 
force,  a  world  court,  a  world 
monetary  structure,  and  a  world 
of  nations  to  make  all  these 
worlds  behave.  All  of  the  back- 
ward places  and  backward  na- 
tions of  the  world  must  be  up- 
lifted into  that  high  moral  plane 
of  prosperity  for  all.  The  tech- 
nology of  North  America  must 
produce  the  ships,  the  planes,  the 
machines,  and  the  goods  to  habi- 
litate and  furnish  the  moral  up- 
lift everywhere  for  everyone  all 
over  the  world.  We  are  exhorted 
to  entrain  on  a  world  crusade  to 
rescue  two  billion  holy  sepul- 
chers. 

One  hundred  and  ninety -five 
million  North  Americans  are  the 
select  few  of  the  world's  popu- 
lation on  whom  the  holy  benedic- 
tion has  beein  bestowed.  This 
Continent,  according  to  the  Sons 
of  Mary  of  business  and  politics, 
must  carry  on  a  crusade  around 
the  world  to  free  the  world  from 
want,  in  order  to  have  business 
prosper  at  home  and  abroad  and 
to  create  a  Continental  scarcity. 

In  a  planetary  sense  the  earth 


is  one  world;  socially  there  are 
two  worlds  on  this  earth  of  ours. 
One  of  these  worlds  has  evolved 
from  out  the  dim  pages  of  history, 
assumed  many  variations,  but  al- 
ways by  the  same  process.  This 
one  world  is  the  world  that  pro- 
duces its  physical  wealth  by  hu- 
man toil  and  hand  tools.  It  is  a 
world  in  which,  in  those  parts 
that  are  the  recipients  of  a  bene- 
ficent nature,  the  population 
growth  invariably  tends  to  out- 
strip the  rate  of  growth  of  human 
sustenance.  The  checks  and  bal- 
ance of  this  world  are  poverty, 
disease,  famine,  malnutrition, 
drought  and  flood,  and  long-range 
climatic  changes.  Combined  with 
soil  exhaustion  and  erosion,  they 
maintain  certain  equilibriums  in 
the  areas  of  this  kind  of  world. 

The  majority  of  the  inhabitants 
of  this  world  are  doomed  to  a 
life  of  unremitting  toil.  The 
areas  on  which  they  reside  do 
not  possess  the  resources  of  en- 
ergy, minerals,  soil,  and  water  per 
capita  to  permit  of  any  change  of 
this  world  of  toil  with  its  existing 
population  densities  over  into  the 
new  world  of  power. 

The  world  of  toil  and  the  world 
of  power  are  geographically  two 
worlds  on  the  same  planet;  their 
destinies  have  nothing  in  com- 
mon. The  world  of  power  is  the 
antithesis  of  the  world  of  toil. 
The  world  of  toil  seeks  to  per- 


21 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


■« 


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petuate  the  production  of  physi- 
cal wealth  in  its  area  by  more 
human  toil;  the  world  of  power 
can  arrive  at  its  destiny  only 
through  the  further  elimination 
of  human  toil  in  the  production 
of  physical  wealth. 

The  world  of  toil  must  contin- 
ually seek  to  bulwark  and  pre- 
serve the  traditions,  techniques, 
and  values  of  yesterday  in  order 
to  preserve  the  static  majesty  of 
its  culture.  The  world  of  toil  in 
seven  thousand  years  has  pro- 
duced complete  moral,  philoso- 
phic, and  religious  justification 
for  its  practices.  Life  in  the 
world  of  toil  is  but  a  vale  of  tears 
for  the  majority  of  the  population. 
Their  only  compensation  is  the 
promised  reward  of  admission  in- 
to some  heaven  in  the  hereafter. 

The  world  of  power,  in  its  pro- 
gression toward  its  rendezvous 
with  destiny,  must  annihilate  the 
values  of  yesterday  in  order  to 
create  its  design  for  tomorrow. 
The  world  of  power  is  in  conflict 
with  the  world  of  toil.  The  world 
of  toil  can  neither  hope  nor  prom- 
ise that  its  tomorrows  will  be  any 
more  than  repetitions  of  all  its 
yesterdays.  A  greater  tomorrow 
for  the  world  of  toil,  therefore, 
can  only  exist  in  the  hereafter. 
The  world  of  power  can  guaran- 
tee the  arrival  of  a  greater  to- 
morrow that  will  be  the  fulfill- 
ment of  all  the  hopes  and  prom- 


ises, a  fulfillment  in  the  here  and 
now  of  this  physical  world  and 
not  the  vague  promises  of  a  great- 
er life  hereafter. 

The  social  structure  of  the 
dominant  economies  in  a  world 
of  power  must,  by  the  necessities 
of  function,  be  fundamentally 
different  from  the  structures  of 
any  and  all  previous  economies 
in  the  world  of  toil.  In  the  world 
of  toil,  increasing  population 
growth  has  always  been  consider- 
ed a  greater  social  potential,  pro- 
vided of  course  that  the  geo- 
graphical area  of  the  economy 
could  continue  to  provide  the  sus- 
tenance for  the  increased  popula- 
tion of  human  toil.  In  the  tech- 
nological structure  of  a  world  of 
power,  any  large-size  national 
economy  must  consider  its  nation- 
al population  rate  of  growth  as 
the  rate  of  growth  of  energy-con- 
suming devices  and  not  merely,  as 
in  the  economy  of  toil,  a  rate  of 
growth  of  biologic  organisms,  viz., 
human  labor. 

The  statesmanship  of  interna- 
tional world  security  must  be  pre- 
dicated upon  the  fundamental 
proposition  that,  when  any  large- 
size  national  economy  permits  its 
rate  of  growth  of  population  to 
exceed  the  rate  of  growth  of  its 
conversion  of  extraneous  energy 
per  capita,  it  will  within  a  short 
period  of  time  automatically  tend 
to  become  a  major  hazard  in  in- 


H  8Hb 


APRIL,    1945 


25 


■     •     IflVilWMifi 


ternational  security.  Any  large- 
size  national  economy  that  per- 
mits its  rate  of  growth  of  popu- 
lation to  exceed  its  rate  of  growth 
of  conversion  of  extraneous  en- 
ergy per  capita,  increases  its 
population  density,  its  mass  pres- 
sure, its  tendency  toward  malnu- 
trition and  famine,  and  its  tend- 
ency to  dump  its  unmaintainable 
surplus  of  national  population 
across  its  boundary  line  to  be 
foisted  as  a  responsibility  on  all 
other  national  economies  that  will 
permit  the  free  flow  of  migrating 
population.  In  such  an  economy, 
a  continuation  of  such  trends 
leads  inevitably  either  to  the  in- 
ternal reduction  of  its  population 
by  famine,  starvation,  and  disease 
internally,  or  to  its  reduction  of 
its  population  externally  and  in- 
ternally by  the  glories  of  war. 

The  rate  of  growth  of  popula- 
tion of  a  large-size  national  econ- 
omy has,  hitherto  in  world  his- 
tory, been  of  only  passing  aca- 
demic interest  externally.  So  long 
as  there  were  vacant  spots  on  the 
map  of  the  world  unpopulated, 
the  population  rate  of  growth  of 
any  national  entity  has  been 
viewed  as  a  prerogative  of  the 
national  sovereignty  of  the  par- 
ticular country  in  which  it  occur- 
red. This  viewpoint  had  some 
validity  in  that  period  prior  to  the 
last  150  years  when  the  world's 
population  rose  from  800  million 


in  1800  to  over  2  billions  at  the 
present  time.  But  today,  with  a 
world  population  of  over  2  billion, 
there  no  longer  are  great  spaces 
of  north  and  south  temperate 
zones  awaiting  incoming  immi- 
grants to  populate  the  soil,  and 
therefore  this  viewpoint  is  a  maj- 
or contribution  to  international 
anarchy. 

India  in  the  year  1700  is  esti- 
mated to  have  had  less  than  150 
million  population.  Its  popula- 
tion was  periodically  levelled  off 
by  famine  and  disease,  but  the 
British  in  the  last  150  years,  in 
their  desire  to  exploit,  improve, 
and  civilize,  have  introduced 
wide-scale  extensive  irrigation 
systems,  forestry,  modern  trans- 
portation and  communication, 
and  large-scale  developments  of 
mineral  and  agricultural  re- 
sources. This  resulted  in  an  in- 
creasing production  of  the  total 
volume  of  food  available  for  hu- 
man consumption,  a  reduction  in 
the  national  death  rate,  due  to  the 
elimination  wholly  or  in  part  of 
disease,  famine,  and  drought.  The 
British  colonial  administration  in 
India  has  been  notable  for  its  in- 
stallation of  occidental  techniques 
for  the  obtaining  of  a  greater 
over-all  efficiency  in  national 
Indian  administration. 

The  British  1940  Indian  Census 
released  in  late  1943  gives  a  total 
population  for  India  of  approxi- 


26 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


Ml 


mately  390  million,  a  50  million 
increase  in  the  population  from 
1930  to  1940,  or  a  net  increase 
per  annum  of  5  million  over  that 
decade.  If  this  rate  of  growth  is 
maintained  for  another  decade, 
the  net  increase  to  India's  popu- 
lation will  be  greater  than  50 
million.  The  question  arises,  can 
India  avoid  national  calamity? 
The  Indian  National  Party  hopes 
to  avoid  this  calamity  for  India 
by  asking  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  to  share  its  resources  with 
India  so  that  India  may  have 
more  than  440  million  population 
in  1950. 

China,  according  to  the  Nan- 
king estimate,  has  470  million 
population.  China,  too,  will  be 
a  prime  advocate  of  extending  the 
christian  charity  of  the  rest  of 
the  "world  to  more  millions  of 
Chinese  in  the  decades  following 
this  war. 

Java,  with  an  area  of  50,745 
square  miles  and  43  million  popu- 
lation, has  less  arable  land  than 
Cuba  with  its  44,164  square  miles 
and  a  population  of  4  million. 
The  Dutch  colonial  administra- 
tion, being  more  efficient  than  the 
British,  German,  French,  or  Am- 
erican colonial  administrations,  is 
relatively  more  guilty  of  aggra- 
vating the  international  problems 
of  the  world  by  so  ably  operating 
the  island  of  Java  as  to  enable 
the    Javanese    to    multiply    their 


population  in  a  greater  relative 
ratio  than  the  kind  offices  of  the 
British  enabled  India  to  achieve. 
Java  has  arrived  at  very  close  to 
maximum  population  density,  if 
not  already  beyond  it.  Food  has 
to  be  imported  to  Java. 

United  States  has  been  lending 
her  kind  offices  in  the  same 
general  direction.  Her  benevo- 
lent colonialism  in  the  Phillipines 
was  achieving  the  same  result. 
Given  occupation  of  similar  dura- 
tion, the  United  States  would 
have  achieved  worse  results  than 
the  British  or  the  Dutch. 

As  an  example,  United  States 
acquired  the  Island  of  Puerto 
Rico  as  conquered  territory  from 
the  war  with  Spain.  In  1898  the 
population  of  Puerto  Rico  was 
estimated  as  just  under  one  mil- 
lion. In  46  years  the  benevolent 
colonialism  of  United  States  has 
enabled  the  population  of  Puerto 
Rico  to  expand  to  2  million  on 
this  island  of  3,435  square  miles, 
or  to  a  population  density  of  582 
per  square  mile.  Puerto  Rico 
has  a  birth  rate  40%  greater 
than  that  of  Japan.  The  Puerto 
Rican  nationalists  are  advocating 
the  independence  of  Puerto  Rico 
from  the  United  States.  This  in- 
dependence, of  course,  is  condi- 
tional upon  the  Government  of 
United  States  setting-  up  indus- 
trial plants  on  the  island  of  Puer- 
to Rico  and  shipping  in  the  en- 


APRIL,   1945 


27 


ergy  fuels,  food,  and  materials  in 
sufficient  amounts  to  employ  all 
the  Puerto  Ricans  that  could  not 
be  employed  normally,  and  to 
permit  the  export  not  only  of 
Puerto  Rican  manufactures  but 
of  Puerto  Ricans  themselves  to 
the  mainland  of  United  States 
and  its  possessions.  In  other 
words,  the  Puerto  Rican  Inde- 
pendence movement  is  insisting 
not  only  on  political  independ- 
ence but  that  the  people  of  Uni- 
ted States  supply  the  island  and 
make  up  all  deficiencies  of  en- 
ergy fuels,  food,  materials,  and 
machinery  in  order  that  there 
may  be  an  even  greater  surplus 
of  Puerto  Ricans  produced  to  still 
further  complicate  the  population 
density  of  Puerto  Rico  itself.  They 
add  insult  to  injury  by  demand- 
ing that  future  surpluses  of  Puer- 
to Ricans  shall  have  the  right  to 
migrate  to  Continental  United 
States.  Puerto  Rico  could  pro- 
vide an  abundant  living  if  its 
population  were  held  to  100  per 
square  mile. 

The  people  of  United  States 
and  Canada  are  being  bombarded 
with  the  propaganda  that  nation- 
al welfare  and  national  prosper- 
ity can  be  maintained  and  ex- 
panded only  by  a  greater  inter- 
nationalism of  world  trade,  world 
finance,  world  politics,  and  world 
relief,  blessed  by  a  subsidized 
world  ecclesiasticism  for  the  sal- 


vation of  the  heathen  souls  of  the 
economically  depressed.  Business 
and  politics,  in  the  midst  of  this 
deluge  of  'globaloney'  propagan- 
da, are  scheming  to  enlist  the 
people  of  this  Continent  as  cru- 
saders to  rescue  the  world  from 
want  and  fear,  but  never  once  do 
they  propose  an  operating  design 
to  save  this  Continent  from  want 
and  fear. 

Technocracy  takes  its  stand 
that  there  is  only  one  proposal 
that  should  be  placed  before  the 
people  of  this  Continent;  namely, 
that  until  the  physical  operations 
of  the  Continent  of  North  Ameri- 
ca are  so  designed  as  to  produce 
and  distribute  abundance  to  all 
and  to  provide  a  guaranteed  an- 
nual income  from  birth  to  death, 
all  proposals  for  international 
betterment  are  the  cheapest  hy- 
pocrisy and  delusion  with  which 
North  Americans  can  be  insulted. 

Technology  decrees  the  passing 
of  small  operations,  small  busi- 
nesses, and  small  national  entit- 
ies. The  world  of  power,  in  order 
to  continue  its  social  advance, 
must  integrate  the  national  en- 
tities within  its  domain  into  con- 
tinental organisms.  The  leading 
continental  organism  of  the  world 
would  be  the  Technate  of  North 
America  with  over  10,300,000 
square  miles  of  land  area.  This 
continental  organism  would  be 
Technological  No.  1  Potential  Area 


28 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


■1 


■ 


■ > 


■ 

Muhw; 


■ 


■1 


■ 


of  the  globe.  Soviet  Russia  is 
also  a  continental  organism  and 
is  Technological  Potential  Area 
No.  2  of  the  world.  Only  the  areas 
that    are     continental     organisms 


can  survive  the  conflict  of  tomor- 
row's international  cut-throat  and 
anarchic  competition. 

— CHQ,  Technocracy  Inc. 


Canada  h  a  Producer 


DURING  1944,  the  Munitions  and  Supply  Department  spent  nearly 
$8  million  a  day  for  war  supplies. 

Canada  now  ranks  as  the  second  greatest  exporting  nation  in  the 
world. 

Among  the  United  Nations,  Canada  is  the  fourth  largest  producer 
of  steel,  third  in  timber  and  at  or  near  the  top  in  the  output  of  nickel, 
asbestos,  platinum,  radium,  gold,  aluminum,  mercury,  copper,  zinc, 
lead,  silver,  arsenic,  magnesium  and  molybdenum. 

To  the  end  of  1944,  Canada  had  produced  more  than  1,000  ships, 
15,000  planes,  1,400,000  machine  guns  and  small  arms,  IV2  million 
tons  of  war  chemicals  and  explosives,  745,000  mechanical  and  armoured 
vehicles. 

Canada  has  also  produced  enough  small  arms  ammunition  to  fire 
two  bullets  into  every  living  person  in  the  world;  enough  heavy 
projectiles  to  destroy  every  dwelling  in  axis-held  Europe;  enough 
lumber  to  build  2%  million  homes;  enough  steel  ingots  to  build  a 
double-track  railway  around  the  world 

From  Canadian  factories  there  has  come  as  well  about  $18  million 
worth  of  rail  equipment,  locomotives  and  freight  cars,  and  more  than 
$450  million  worth  of  radar,  signals  apparatus,  electrical  devices  and 
instruments 

For  the  first  time  in  her  history,  Canada  is  producing  synthetic 
rubber,  mercury,  magnesium  ingots,  tin,  tungsten,  chrome  concentrates, 
aviation  gasoline,  optical  glass,  various  chemicals,  and  new  types  of 
plywoods,  plastics,  textiles,  paints  and  lacquers.  She  is  also  making 
for  the  first  time  many  complicated  types  of  machine  tools. 

Only  30  per  cent  of  the  Canadian  war  production  is -delivered 
to  Canadian  forces  at  home  and  abroad. 

Much  of  it  has  been  shipped  under  the  Mutual  Aid  Act. 


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The  Art  of  the  Sun 


The  new  era  .  .  .  will  both  create  and  be  created  by  a  new  culture 
.  .  .  It  will  turn  away  from  an  emphasis  on  death,  the  end;  it  will 
turn  toward  birth  and  the  beginning.  It  will  cease  to  be  the  culture 
of  night;  it  will  be  the  culture  of  the  sun. 


VINCENT  Van  Gogh,  most 
individual  of  modern  artists, 
painted  objective  things:  a  chair, 
a  woman  of  Aries,  his  simple 
homely  bedroom  with  its  chair 
and  table  and  pitcher,  a  pair  of 
wooden  shoes  or  a  pipe,  the  sun- 
flowers of  the  field  ....  These  he 
lit  into  color  with  the  fiery  sun 
of  his  own  heart;  but  these  he 
painted  simply  and  clearly  for  the 
sake  of  their  own  clear  and 
simple  selves.  He  loved  the  tex- 
ture of  leather  and  wood,  the 
shapes  of  stubby  pipes,  the  hand- 
led contour  of  concrete,  useful, 
human  things.  His  heart  was  a 
sun  and  the  sun  gives  form  and 
hue;  its  light  creates  the  geomet- 
ry of  line,  the  spectrum  of  color. 
Van  Gogh  was  a  sun  and  the  sun 
gives  power  to  each  thing  to  say: 
I  am! 

Van  Gogh  dreamed  also  of  a 
community  of  artists.  He  knew 
that  art  could  not  live  when  the 
artist  was  a  play-boy,  giving 
beauty  not  as  the  daily  bread 
(and  wine),  but  as  the  fad  and 
freak  of  the  few  rich  or  of  the 
art-fanciers    who    flourish    in    an 


Reprinted  from   Technocracy,   A-18. 


inorganic  world.  He  knew  that 
art  must  be  integral  in  life.  And 
so  he  dreamed,  and  so  he  sought 
to  found,  a  brotherhood  of  artists 
who  should  picture  the  texture 
and  the  substance  of  man's  life 
with  objective  clarity.  He  sought 
to  make  artists  organic  and  in- 
tegral in  life — as  a  great  bridge, 
a  cathedral,  a  symphony  are  or- 
ganic and  integral  in  a  great 
period  of  human  life.  But  though 
he  succeeded  in  creating  art,  he 
failed  in  creating  a  community 
of  artists. 

Because  he  failed,  art  became 
less  and  less  organic  and  integral. 
Therefore  art  more  and  more  took 
the  way  of  the  subjective  or  per- 
sonal multiverses  of  each  artist's 
own  little  half-way  self  (halfway 
between  the  community  of  logic 
and  reason  in  the  surface  mind 
and  the  community  of  subcon- 
scious super-knowledge  in  the 
buried  mind).  Out  of  that  half- 
way land  came  Surrealism  on  the 
on  hand  and  Abstract  Art  on  the 
other.  Surrealism  and  Abstract 
Art! — they,  the  art  of  the  fog,  dis- 
solve things  lucid  and  real  into 
the    drifting    amorphous    dreams 


30 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


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of  each  man's  individual  arbi- 
trary fancy  of  theory  .  .  .  into  the 
individual  fog  shapes  of  each 
man's  little  personal  multiverse. 
The  universe  of  the  sun  becomes 
the  multiverse  of  the  fog.  The 
objective  world  that  the  sun  gives 
is  full  of  distinction,  variety, 
difference  of  line  and  color,  of 
nuance  and  mood;  the  many  sub- 
jective worlds  that  the  fog  gives, 
are  full  of  monotony,  blurred 
shadow-shapes,  and  a  deadly  dis- 
solution of  forms.  The  subjective 
destroys  itself  first;  then  it  de- 
stroys man's  zest  and  appetite  for 
art;  and  finally  it  tends  to  dis- 
integrate man's  very  world.  Art, 
as  Van  Gogh  knew  long  ago,  must 
return  to  the  simple,  the  human, 
the  spiritual:  it  must  be  function- 
al, organic,  integral,  objective:  it 
must  lift  the  objects  of  life  into 
communal  joy. 

Our  problem  today,  if  we  love 
art  and  life,  is  to  find  out  how  we 
may  do  in  a  victorious  and  wider 
way  what  Van  Gogh  tried  to  do 
long  ago  in  his  valiant  but  de- 
feated way.  How  can  Art  be 
lifted  out  of  the  subjective  multi- 
verses  of  the  little  personal  men 
who  defile  and  caricature  it  in 
innumerable  poetry  magazines, 
picture  galleries,  musical  fog- 
banks,  stream-of-consciousness 
novels  .  .  .  and  into  the  great  ob- 
jective, clarity,  simplicity  and  in- 
tegrity that  Van  Gogh  desired? 

APRIL,   1945 


What  is  the  light  and  where  is 
the  road? 

The  genius  of  our  American 
Continent,  also,  has  always 
sought  to  find  itself,  as  Van  Gogh 
found  himself,  by  expressing  its 
subjective  love  in  outward  crea- 
tion. 

The  purest  spirit  of  our  Con- 
tinent and  the  widest  of  our  Con- 
tinent, were  both  objective  in  this 
noble  sense.  Henry  David  Thor- 
eau— simplifying  life  in  order  that 
he  might  find  life  subtle,  accept- 
ing poverty  in  order  that  he 
might  be  rich — loved  the  touch 
of  earth,  the  glow  of  air,  the  flow 
of  water:  he  became  individual 
and  unique  by  the  love  of  out- 
ward substance  as  inward  sym- 
bol. And  Walt  Whitman  seeing 
the  objective  universe,  praised  it 
thus: 

Smile,  0  voluptous,  cool-breathed  earth! 
Earth     of     the     slumbering     and     liquid 

trees ! 
Earth  of  sunset!     earth  of  the  mountains 

misty-topt! 
Earth    of    the    vitreous    pour   of    the    full 

moon,  just  tinged  with  blue! 
Earth    of    shine    and    dark,    mottling    the 

tide    of    the    river    .    .    . 
Far-swooping,       elbowed       earth!       rich, 

apple-blossomed    earth, 
Smile,  for  your  lover  comes! 

Mark  Twain,  too,  in  all  that 
was  best  in  him  (not  the  paltry 
stricken  pessimism,  the  theories 
rooted  in  personal  defeat  and 
frustration  of  his  later  years)  — 
in  those  rich  earlier  celebrations 
of  Old  Man  River — was  great  in 


31 


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objective  wealth.  He  loved  the 
touch  and  savor  of  things — even 
the  'fish-belly  white,  (the)  white 
to  make  a  body's  flesh  crawl'  of 
Huckleberry  Finn's  father.  He 
loved  to  drift  on  a  raft,  or  to 
thunder  and  splash  on  a  steam- 
boat, down  a  great  river  under 
the  stars  .  .  .  discouraging,  watch- 
ing the  jewelled  lights  of  cities, 
catching  the  god  solid  cat-fish, 
stealing  a  watermelon  or  listen- 
ing to  the  drawling  picturesque- 
ness  of  shanty  loafers. 

And  Herman  Melville,  before 
personal  sadness  and  the  strange 
loneliness  of  his  fate  drove  him 
through  mazes  into  silence,  lived 
outwardly  too.  For  all  his  Titan 
revolt  against  'the  proud  commo- 
dores of  this  world,'  he  loved  the 
blues  and  greens  of  the  sea,  the 
smell  of  blubber,  the  eerie 
strangeness  of  white,  the  thunder 
and  crash  of  great  action  .  .  .  He 
made  Nature  herself  into  symbol, 
incarnating  the  power  of  the 
subhuman  in  Moby  Dick,  the 
White  Whale. 

Even  the  shy  and  lonely  Emily 
Dickinson  did  not  stagnate  in 
some  nebulous  inner  Cloud  Land: 
she  wrote  of  the  'naked  tree'  in 
March  that  was  'not  at  home  to 
callers'  till  its  jacket  came  in 
April;  of  the  sea,  that  'every- 
where of  silver';  of  the  blatant 
notoriety  of  the  petty  great  of  any 
given    day — 'How    public    like    a 


frog!'  There  was  no  dada,  no 
surrealism,  in  all  her  poetry. 

Thus  the  true  founding  fathers 
of  the  American  scene — the  poets 
and  the  prophets  who  have  in- 
vited the  American  dream — the 
creators  who  have  'hung  a  faith 
and  a  love'  like  stars  above  our 
Continent — have  all  practiced 
this  noble  objectivity.  Indeed, 
we  may  say  that  America  is  an 
origin,  a  New  World  in  this  sense 
most.  America  speaks  in  the 
good  words  of  Thoreau:  'I  would 
not  be  one  of  those  who  will 
foolishly  drive  a  nail  into  mere 
lath  and  plastering;  such  a  deed 
would  keep  me  up  nights.  Give 
me  a  hammer  and  let  me  feel  for 
the  furring.' 

The  great  spokesmen  for  the 
American  scene  have  been  integ- 
rated, organic,  harmonious,  be- 
cause they  loved  the  outer  world 
and  lit  it  into  being  with  the  sun 
of  their  own  hearts.  They  found, 
as  individuals,  their  way  out  of 
the  multiverses  of  fog,  and  into 
the  universe  of  the  sun.  But 
their  Golden  Day  never  became 
triumphant  outside  their  own 
lives;  it  remains  only  a  great  tra- 
dition. 

Where  is  our  light,  where  is  our 
road,  today,  to  a  wider  cosmos  of 
harmony  and  integrity  than  even 
they  knew?  We  have  lost  it  in 
our  individual  lives  and  in  most 
of  our  art  and  literature.    Where 


32 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


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can  we  find  it — and  how  can  we 
make  it  the  triumphant  psycho- 
logical climate  of  our  Continent? 
That  is  our  question  .  .  .  and  des- 
tiny. 

Health  of  the  eyes,  harmony  of 
the  heart,  joy  of  the  spirit:  in 
short,  integrity.  This  must  be  the 
achievement  of  tomorrow,  if  life 
is  to  survive  and  art  is  to  return. 
It  must  become  the  psychological 
weather,  the  spiritual  climate,  of 
our  Continent. 

Integrity!  Where  do  we  find  in- 
tegrity in  the  modern  world?  We 
find  it  where  the  statesmen  of 
construction,  known  as  engineers, 
have  been  able  to  function  in 
spite  of  business  and  politics.  In 
Continental  planning  (as  a  vision) 
and  in  actual  detailed  engineer- 
ing of  modern  highways,  dams, 
hydroelectric  power,  the  new 
agriculture,  hydroponics,  etc.,  we 
find  hints  and  broken  gleams  of 
what  might  be.  The  statesmen 
ol  engineering  see  objectively: 
they  see  things  lucidly,  simply, 
concretely;  and  they  love  the 
things  they  see  with  a  clean  ob- 
jectivity. They  create  a  spiritual 
community,  a  modern  version  of 
Van  Gogh's  community  of  cre- 
ators and  appreciators  or  of  Whit- 
man's 'dear  love  of  comrades': 
for  they  bring  men  together  into 
unity.  Great  architecture,  spaci- 
ous with  air  and  gracious  with 
light — great   planning     of     cities 

APRIL,   1945 


and  waterways  and  farms — great 
highways  spanning  the  hills  and 
the  morning  with  the  easy  might 
of  perfect  power,  streamlined 
trains  and  automobiles — these  not 
only  unite  men  practically,  they 
unite  them  aesthetically:  men's 
hearts  leap  up  at  these  as  surely 
as  at  the  rainbow  in  the  sky;  men 
do  not  quarrel  or  differ  or  doubt 
concerning  these;  men  are  united 
by  these  as  by  prayer,  or  sacra- 
ments, or  Bach's  fugues,  or  the 
ancient  democracy  of  death,  or 
the  timeless  miracle  of  the  child 
in  the  cradle.  These  are  spiritual 
unions  beyond  all  parties  and  po- 
litics and  false  divisive  theories. 
Men  are  pushed  apart  by  political 
platforms,  or  by  artistic  fashions; 
men  are  brought  together  by  en- 
gineering and  the  social  unities 
of  great  construction.  Great  en- 
gineering fulfills  Tolstoi's  pro- 
found definition  of  art:  it  unites 
men  in  great  emotion. 

Engineering  belongs  not  to  the 
multiverses  of  the  fog  but  to  the 
universe  of  the  sun.  A  great 
bridge,  building,  or  road,  or  dam, 
is  not  a  subjective  fog-dream  of 
one  man's  own  little  whimsical 
cell  of  mist;  it  is  a  communal, 
lucid,  concrete,  shareable  and 
shared  integration.  It  takes  each 
one  of  us  out  of  his  own  little 
limited  ambulant  nightmare  of  a 
worldlet,  into  the  shared  and  ob- 
jective co-consciousness     of     the 


33 


\Sm 


WKfWK 


Iks 


if  W> 


■ 


•WKT 


VSfwakt 


■nana    mm 


v*i« 


EH  :^mm 


world.  A  bridge  is  there;  it  stands 
up  and  takes  the  morning;  it  is 
not  a  moment's  aberration  and 
fantasy  of  some  man's  whim.  It 
says  like  God,  'I  am  what  I  am.' 
It  abides  and  endures.  If  it  were 
surrealism  or  abstract  art,  the 
second  man  to  walk  on  it  would 
fall  into  the  implacable  river  be- 
low and  drown.  It  is  an  integ- 
rity. 

Here  and  now,  great  and 
growing,  the  very  spirit  and  dy- 
namo of  our  most  modern  world, 
is  the  very  thing  we  need.  If 
there  is  to  be  any  future,  it  will 
be  the  future  of  Technocracy:  the 
statesmanship  of  machinery!  The 
prophet,  the  saint,  the  poet,  the 
hero — today  all  these  must  be 
fused  and  kindled  into  the  true 
superman,  who  will  be  a  very 
usual  and  human  and  real  man, 
painting  his  masterpieces  upon 
the  canvas  of  a  Continent. 

Technocracy  alone  will  bring 
life  into  the  clear  objectivity  of 
the  universe  of  the  sun.  No  other 
alternative  can  do  it. 

What  men  really  need  and  want 
is  a  clear,  objective,  shared  and 
shareable,  universe  of  the  sun. 
Men  tire  of  the  multiverse  of 
their  individual  little  cults;  they 
tire  of  the  wider,  yet  universe 
denying,  multiverses  of  the  social 
mists — communism,  democracy, 
fascism;  they  want  the  definite, 
concrete,  structural  integrity  that 


builds  a  Continental  common- 
wealth as  engineers  build  a  dam, 
and  store  the  waters,  and  gather 
the  spun  lightning,  and  pour  the 
rivers  of  energy  and  light  down 
to  turn  man's  night  into  day, 
man's  toil  into  play.  Only  such 
engineering  will  satisfy  both 
man's  most  sordid  need — and 
man's  highest  dream.  Only  such 
engineering  will  restore  man  to 
his  lost  unity  in  a  clear  objective 
world. 

How  can  man  find  this?  Two 
things  are  necessary:  a  personal 
re-integration;  a  social  re-integ- 
ration. 

Each  man  must  break  the  hard 
husk  of  his  ego,  as  the  grain  of 
corn  breaks  its  stubborn  shell; 
each  man  should  find  the  soft 
strong  living  plasm  of  himself,  as 
the  broken  seed  finds  the  stalk, 
the  filmy  blade,  the  wind  and 
sun,  the  perfect  corn.  To  reiter- 
ate that  we  are  'the  stuffed  men, 
the  hollow  men'  is  to  shut  our- 
selves up  in  the  hard  pettiness 
of  the  hopeless  ego;  we  should 
know,  rather,  that  within  the  hol- 
low men,  the  stuffed  men,  even 
in  them,  lies  the  longing  and  the 
power  for  'the  lightnings  and 
great  deeds.'  Let  them  only  turn 
their  inner  forces  outward.  For- 
get whether  you  are  modern  or 
ancient,  clever,  disillusioned,  hap- 
py or  unhappy,  smart  or  a  Yokel, 
a  humanist  or  an  Oxford  Grouper 


34 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


or  a  Trotskyite  or  a  damn  fool. 
All  such  things  are  unimportant, 
because  they  are  unreal.  Find 
yourself  rather,  in  the  outward 
universe  of  the  sun  that  does  not 
narrow  you  into  a  hard  shell  of 
ego  but  widens  you  into  plastic 
growth  in  a  shared  world.  Begin 
with  very  simple  things — with 
the  catalogue  of  loves  that  Rupert 
Brooke  knew:  touch  'the  cold 
graveness  of  iron,'  watch  'the 
keen  unpassioned  beauty  of  a 
great  machine,'  stare  at  'blue- 
massing  clouds,'  smell  'the  reek 
of  last  year's  ferns,'  feel  'the  cool 
kindness  of  sheets  that  soon 
smooth  away  trouble'  or  the 
'rough  male  kiss  of  blankets,'  and 
taste  'the  strong  crust  of  friendly 
bread.'  Bathe  with  Whitman  in 
the  ocean  that  will  'cushion  you 
soft,  rock  you  in  billowy  drowse.' 
Notice  the  coral  atolls  of  the  blos- 
soming peach  trees;  run  your 
fingers  over  the  apple-glazed 
smoothness  of  the  new-plowed 
furrow;  bathe  in  the  ocean-bath 
of  the  turmoil  of  cities;  find  the 
objective  richness  even  of  'mil- 
lion-footed Manhattan'  or  of  Chi- 
cago shaking  like  a  dinosaur,  with 
delirium  tremens.  See  in  a  stub- 
by pipe,  or  the  flame  of  sun- 
flowers, the  sacrament  that  Van 
Gogh  saw. 

Thus  you  will  leave  the  world 
of  the  ego-dreams  into  which  men 
should  retire  only  at  night,   and 


you  will  enter  the  universe  of 
the  world-dream  that  all  men 
share    (or  can  share)   at  waking. 

But  this  is  not  enough.  A  few 
rare,  gifted  spirits  will  find  this 
world  of  the  sun  even  in  hell. 
Fcr  most  men,  however,  most  of 
the  time,  there  can  be  no  objec- 
tive clarity  in  an  intellectually 
bewildered  world,  no  objective 
joy  in  a  poverty  damned  world 
where  things  come  only  to  greed 
and  intrigue  and  manipulation;  no 
peace  in  a  world  where  the  ignor- 
ant armies  of  the  multiverses  of 
fog  clash  by  night.  For  the  mass 
of  men,  there  must  be  a  social 
universe  of  the  sun. 

In  order  to  have  this  there 
must  first  of  all  be  wisdom,  vis- 
ion, intellectual  integration:  sec- 
ond, there  must  be  creative  im- 
agination organizing  itself  into 
heroic  action.  There  must  be 
knowledge  of  what  may  be 
(neither  too  spendthrift  with 
Utopia,  nor  too  miserly  with  my- 
opia)— the  sober  audacity  of  the 
imagination  which  sees  the  full 
implications  of  man's  modern 
mastery  of  nature.  There  must 
be  generalship,  too:  a  knowledge 
of  the  tactics  and  strategy  by 
which  man's  technos  (or  skill) 
can  become  man's  cracy  (or 
rule).  There  must  be,  also,  the 
hard,  sober,  business  of  integ- 
rating the  word  into  the  flesh — 
the  incarnation,  the  birth  that  is 


APRIL,   1945 


35 


always  anguish.  And  then  there 
can  be  for  all  an  objective  uni- 
verse of  the  sun,  where  there 
can  be  community  of  spiritual 
weather,  a  world  of  shareable 
abundance,  a  world  of  artistic  ob- 
jectivity and  communication. 
Vincent       Van       Gogh — great, 


lonely,  lost — had  (as  he  said)  to 
'take  death  to  reach  a  star.'  But 
for  us,  there  is  the  more  sober 
and  more  widely  creative  way: 
it  is  ours  to  take  life  to  reach  an 
economy  of  abundance— and  the 
universe  of  the  sun.' 

— E.  Merrill  Root 


Penicillin  Pills  Perfected 


NEW  YORK,  Feb.  16. — Discovery  of  a  method  to  make  penicillin 
pills,  to  replace  the  injection  by  needle,  was  announced  today  by 
the  Lederle  Laboratories  of  the  American  Cynamid  Company. 

Pills  to  be  taken  by  mouth  have  been  one  of  the  main  medical 
goals  in  penicillin  treatment.  Until  now  it  has  been  impossible  to  do 
this  because  the  gastric  juices  in  the  stomach  destroyed  most  of  the 
penicillin. 

Raymond  S.  Libby,  of  the  Cynamid  Research  Laboratories  at 
Stamford,  Conn.,  solved  this  trouble  by  placing  penicillin  in  a  double- 
deck  capsule.  The  outside  covering  is  gelatin,  which  is  dissolved  in 
the  stomach.  The  inside  cover  is  cottonseed  oil,  which  is  little  affected 
by  stomach  juices. 

The  oil  carries  the  drug  to  the  small  intestine,  where  it  is  absorbed 
into  the  blood,  the  place  where  penicillin  has  to  be  to  do  any  good. 
Experiments  with  peanut  and  corn  oil  indicated  that  probably  any 
vegetable  oil  is  good  for  the  inside  covering.  — Associated  Press 


-ft  WHAT  WAS  THE  FATE  of  those  people  who  espoused  Technocratic  ideas  in 
fascist  countries  in  Europe?  The  Deutche  Technocratishe  Gesellshaft  in  Germany 
was  dishanded  and  its  exponents  sent  to  the  concentration  camps.  The  Techno- 
kraticke  Spolecnosti  in  Prague  was  disbanded  when  Hitler  moved  into  Czechoslo- 
vakia. The  'T  Nederlandsch  Technocratisch  Verbond  of  Holland  was  broken  up 
by  the  Gestapo.  And  in  Italy  those  engineers  and  students  who  advocated  Tech- 
nocracy there  were  sentenced  to  five  years  confine  None  of  these  organizations 
had  any  affiliation  with  Technocracy  Inc.,  but  they  advanced  similar  ideas  and  carried 
on  similar  studies.  Apparently  those  ideas  were  not  in  conformance  with  fascist 
ideas. 


36 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


H 

uy 

pjw>-    By 

BjH 

■ 


■ 


ng 


Its  Sweet  Traffic 


Napoleon  would  be  astonished  to  see  how  far  Canada  has  developed 
the  sugar  beet,  which  in  his  day  yielded  only  4%  of  sucrose.  Today 
the  southern  Alberta  sugar  beet  gives  up  18%  to  produce  an  esti- 
mated 50,000  tons  of  sugar  in  1944. 


TAKING  it  by  and  large,  the 
sugar  beet  traffic  on  the  Ca- 
adian  Pacific  Railway  Company's 
Lethbridge  division  is  a  'sweet' 
business  from  more  than  one 
standpoint. 

In  the  first  place,  the  company 
hauls  in  a  season  approximately 
3,000  cars  of  the  succulent  roots 
to  the  two  big  factories  of  the  Ca- 
adian  Sugar  company  at  Ray- 
mond and  Picture  Butte,  Alberta. 
This  is  roughly  60  per  cent  of  the 
sugar  beet  movement  from  farm 
to  factory,  since  large  acreages  of 
the  beets  are  situated  so  close  to 
the  factories  that  it  is  more  eco- 
nomical to  send  them  in  by  truck 
or  wagon. 

Not  only  is  there  freight  on  the 
beets  in  their  movement  to  the 
factory,  however,  but  the  com- 
pany gets  the  movement  of  the 
manufactured  sugar  to  market — 
and  that  is  to  all  parts  of  the 
prairie  provinces. 

Nor  is  that  all,  for  there  is  an 
interesting  sideline  to  the  south- 
ern Alberta  sugar  beet  industry. 
Pulp,   or  residue  from  the  roots 


Reprinted    from    the    Canadian    Pacific 
Staff  Bulletin. 


APRIL.  1945 


after  they  have  been  processed 
to  recover  their  sugar,  is  made 
into  by-products,  one  of  which 
goes  by  the  name  of  Betalasses, 
to  be  fed  to  livestock.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  60,000  lambs  and  15,- 
000  head  of  cattle  are  fattened 
and  'finished'  on  these  sugar-beet 
by-products  each  year.  The  com- 
pany thus  ships  each  season  into 
the  sugar  beet  area  large  quanti- 
ties of  livestock  for  fattening  and 
these  animals  are  again  shipped 
out  to  markets  as  far  away  as  the 
east  coast  of  the   United  States. 

Yes,  it's  a  sweet  business,  but 
for  S.  R.  Lamb,  the  Superinten- 
dent of  the  Lethbridge  division, 
and  his  assistant  superintendents, 
yardmasters,  dispatchers  and 
train  crews,  it  is  not  all  milk  and 
honey. 

'Before  the  beets  actually  reach 
the  railway  sidings  where  they 
are  loaded,'  Superintendent  Lamb 
explained,  'cars  of  a  special  type 
have  to  be  assembled  and  placed 
ready  for  the  first  delivery  of 
beets  from  the  field.  Additional 
train  and  engine  crews,  together 
with  their  motive  power,  have  to 
be  assembled  for  the  movement. 


.£ 


GOT 


Si 


From  the  start  of  the  run  on. 
September  25  to  the  end,  which  is 
about  January  10,  it  is  essential 
that  deliveries  of  sugar  beets  to 
the  factories  be  maintained  with- 
out interruption.  The  factories 
run  without  stopping  during  the 
entire  period  and  any  stoppage 
would  literally  gum  up  the  works 
and  result  in  considerable  ex- 
pense and  delay  as  complicated 
machinery  would  have  to  be 
cleaned  before  operations  could 
be  renewed.  It  can  readily  be 
seen  that  successful  operation  of 
the  factories  depends  on  orderly 
movement  of  the  beets  by  rail.' 

This  means,  according  to  Mr. 
Lamb,  that  an  average  of  one  car 
of  55  tons  of  beets  has  to  be  de- 
livered every  hour  in  the  24  to 
each  of  the  two  plants.  Through 
the  installation  of  improved  ma- 
chinery and  more  intensive  oper- 
ating methods,  the  factories  now 
run  closer  to  65  tons  per  hour, 
meaning  that  more  cars  have  to 
be  delivered  to  maintain  peak 
production. 

Cars  used  for  the  traffic  are 
for  the  most  part  modern  gondo- 
las and  dump-cars  of  large-carry- 
ing capacity.  In  handling  the  1943 
crop,  for  example,  the  division 
unloaded  a  total  of  3,001  cars  and 
the  average  load  per  car  reached 
the  creditable  figure  of  59.5  tons. 

In  order  to  gain  some  idea  of 
the  scope  and  extent  of  southern 


Alberta's  flourishing  sugar  beet 
industry  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  the  beet  crops  are  grown  on 
irrigated  and  rich  soil.  In  1944, 
28,738  acres  were  sown  to  beets, 
against  29,834  acres  in  1943.  High- 
er yields  in  the  1944  crop,  how- 
ever, are  bringing  this  season's 
production  above  that  of  last  year 
and  the  sugar  company  expects  to 
produce  from  the  1944  crop  some 
50,000  tons  of  sugar  which  means 
100,000,000  pounds.  The  1943 
yield  was  83,264,000  pounds. 

Field  tons  per  acre  ran  11.50  in 
1944  as  against  9.90  in  1943,  and 
the  price  has  been  favoring  the 
grower,  too,  as  the  1944  price  of 
$11.50  per  ton  is  more  than  a  dol- 
lar above  the  1943  figure— $10.35. 

This  means  that  the  movement 
to  the  factories  is  going  to  work 
out  finally  at  close  to  350,000 
tons,  of  which  the  company  will 
have  handled  close  to  200,000 
tons  or  nearly  3,500  cars. 

Southern  Alberta  takes  just 
pride  in  its  sugar  beet  industry. 
They  have  nurtured  it  well  since 
the  first  plant  of  the  Canadian 
Sugar  Factories  Ltd.  was  built  at 
Raymond  in  1925,  and  now  that 
the  Raymond  plant  is  augmented 
by  the  Picture  Butte  factory, 
completed  in  1936,  the  acreage 
has  increased,  and  improved 
methods  of  soil  preparation  and 
treatment,  as  well  as  better  irri- 
gation control,  are  bringing  high- 


38 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


er  yields  per  acre  and  higher  per- 
centages of  sugar  content  in  the 
beets  themselves. 

This  is  the  result  of  a  long- 
range  campaign  of  intensive  edu- 
cation and  supervision.  Farmers 
on  irrigated  land  face  heavier 
costs  than  dry  farmers.  To  make 
their  land  pay  they  must  work  it 
intensively,  rotating  crops  with 
an  eye  to  soil  preservation  as 
well  as  to  net  returns,  and  con- 
stantly building  up  their  land 
with  fertilizers  to  provide  the  til- 
lage which  will  guarantee  high 
yields  of  the  good-paying  crops 
that  mean  success. 

Agricultural  experts  of  the  Al- 
berta and  of  the  Dominion  gov- 
ernments, experts  from  irrigated 
areas  of  the  northern  United 
States,  and  the  ubiquitous  field 
men  of  the  sugar  company  have 
combined  their  efforts  to  advise 
the  farmer  and  to  put  him  on  the 
right  track  for  results  beneficial 
to  himself  as  well  as  the  industry. 

Senator  W.  A.  Buchanan's 
Lethbridge  Herald  has  been  in 
the  forefront  of  the  fight  to  build 
southern  Alberta's  sugar  beet  in- 
dustry. This  energetic  newspaper 
puts  up  a  shield  for  annual  com- 
petition in  the  '18-ton  Club'  or- 
ganized to  stimulate  interest  in 
better  methods  of  growing.  Pre- 
sent holder  of  the  shield  is  O.  P. 
Olsen,  of  Cranford,  Alberta, 
whose  record  was  22.44  tons  per 

APRIL,   1945 


acre  on  15  acres  in  1940.  In  1941 
this  skilful  grower  produced  20.64 
tons  per  acre,  and  grew  16.25  tons 
per  acre  on  23  acres  in  1943. 

When  southern  Alberta  farm- 
ers recall  the  small  yields  of  1926 
and  1927  when  their  beet  indus- 
try was  making  its  first  toddling 
steps,  they  can  find  reason  to  take 
pride  in  records  like  those  of  Mr. 
Olsen. 

The  harvest  'blitz,'  September 
20  to  about  October  20,  might 
have  been  bad  for  southern  Al- 
berta's beet  growers  this  fall  had 
it  not  been  for  prisoners  of  war 
who  were  loaned  during  the  thin- 
ning season  when  the  labor  de- 
mand is  greatest.  Some  200  pri- 
soners of  war  were  engaged  in 
the  work,  most  of  them  in  the 
Lethbridge-Coaldale  area.  In  ad- 
dition, Japanese  nationals  remov- 
ed from  the  Pacific  Coast  defence 
area,  many  of  them  girls,  took  a 
hand  in  the  harvesting  and  prov- 
ed valuable  workers. 

Sugar  beets  are  'big  business' 
in  the  Lethbridge  section.  The 
sugar  company  estimated  that 
Alberta  farmers  receive  around 
$3,000,000  for  beets;  factory 
workers  gain  another  $500,000  in 
wages;  railways  earn  $475,000  in 
freight  charges;  mines  and  quar- 
ries benefit  to  the  extent  of  $100,- 
000  and  other  Alberta  "  factories 
receive  $150,000  from  various  re- 
lated aspects  of  the  industry. 


39 


The  transportation  story  gives 
a  quick  insight  into  the  growth  of 
the  trade.  The  big  year — until 
1944  at  any  rate — was  1942  when 
the  Canadian  Pacific,  taking  care 
of  60  per  cent  of  the  movement, 
unloaded  3,686  cars  and  206,109 
tons  of  beets  at  the  Raymond  and 
Picture  Butte  factories.  By  con- 
trast, the  year  1929,  represented 
for  the  company  a  movement  of 
53,019  tons  in  1,045  cars.  And  in 
1929  the  company  had  86  per 
cent  of  the  total  movement. 

In  1931,  with  81  per  cent  of  the 
total  movement,  the  company  un- 
loaded 1,621  cars  and  85,748  tons. 

The  year  1937,  however,  saw  a 
sharp  increase  in  the  shipments 
for  that  was  the  year  when  the 
new  Picture  Butte  factory  added 
its  production  to  that  of  the  older 
plant  at  Raymond. 

That  fall  the  movement  was  2,- 
543  cars  and  149,235  tons,  for  the 
company's  58  per  cent  of  the  haul. 
In  handling  the  1943  crop  the 
company  unloaded  a  total  of  178, 
790  tons,  3,001  cars,  at  Raymond 
and  Picture  Butte.  By  the  use  of 
modern  cars  they  stepped  the 
average  load  per  car  up  to  59.5 
tons. 

Napoleon,  who  is  said  to  have 
given  the  humble  sugar  beet  its 
real  start  by  encouraging  the 
French  people  to  grow  them 
when  the  country  was  surround- 
ed by  enemies  and     his     foreign 


sources  of  sugar  curtailed,  would 
be  astonished  to  see  how  far  Can- 
ada has  progressed  with  the  de- 
velopment of  a  plant  which  in  his 
day  yielded  only  four  per  cent  of 
sucrose.  Today  the  southern  Al- 
berta sugar  beet,  selected,  cod- 
dled and  fertilized,  gives  up  18 
per  cent. 

Modern  in  every  detail,  the 
plants  at  Raymond  and  Picture 
Butte  are  models  of  cleanliness 
and  efficiency. 

Beets  are  dumped  from  railway 
cars,  or  trucks  and  wagons,  into 
storage  piles  which  may  contain 
60,000  tons  of  beets  at  a  time.  Fast 
running  water  carries  them  to 
the  washer.  Then  they  are  weigh- 
ed, sliced  into  what  the  trade  calls 
cossettes,  steamed  and  dropped 
into  diffusion  batteries  where  the 
sugar  is  soaked  from  them. 

The  process  resembles  the 
steeping  of  tea.  Shreds  of  sliced 
beets  are  steeped  in  hot  water 
under  pressure  as  high  as  50 
pounds  to  the  square  inch;  the 
sugar  diffuses  from  the  cell  of 
the  beet  into  the  water,  which  is 
drawn  off  after  soaking  about  an 
hour  in  each  separate  tank  of  the 
battery.  There  are  two  products 
resulting  from  this:  pulp  and  the 
juice.  The  pulp  goes  through  a 
pipe  to  an  outside  pit,  and  makes 
an  excellent  cattle  food.  Diffusion 
juice,  as  it  is  now  called,  is  then 
pumped  through  measuring  tanks 


40 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


H 

■■■■■■ 

!Btt»« 

11    mft   ra 

BEETS*  oW^i 

np& 

is     ■■■Ifgfc* 

';VV    H ' 

S3  ag  *v2 

5f-'  1        Bfr 

HBBflfi 

HEMi'v*"' 

wr**              V 

■■  wfct 

■  warn 

»•.   «. 


I   V 


and  then  to  the  carbonators. 

The  juice,  heated  to  boiling, 
now  has  to  undergo  several  com- 
plicated chemical  processes.  En- 
tering the  carbonators  which  are 
tremendous  tanks  into  which  both 
carbonate  of  lime  and  CO2  gas 
are  admitted,  the  lime  is  passed 
through  the  juice  to  act  as  a  puri- 
fier, and  to  condense  some  of  the 
impurities  in  the  juice.  To  get  rid 
of  the  lime,  carbon  dioxide  is 
passed  through  it.  The  juice  is 
then  passed  through  a  series  of 
filters  and  sulphured,  until  all 
impurities  are  removed.  Next 
comes  the  evaporation  process  by 
which  water  is  removed  from  the 
juice,  and  the  vacuum  tanks, 
which  reduce  the  fluid  to  the 
gleaming  white  crystals  which 
are  further  refined  by  being  re- 
volved at  terrific  speed  in  a  huge 
centrifugal  drum  which  removes 
traces  of  syrup  from  the  sugar 
crystals.  Then  it  is,  at  last,  fine 
white  granulated  sugar,  and 
ready  for  the  table. 

Like  its  counterparts  in  south- 
ern Alberta,  the  Manitoba  Sugar 
Company's  huge    new    plant    in 


Fort  Garry,  in  the  suburbs  of 
Winnipeg,  is  a  model  of  up-to- 
date  cleanliness  and  efficiency. 
Its  beet  acreage  is  on  the  com- 
pany's branch  lines  south  of  the 
city,  but  not  on  irrigated  land. 

Last  year  flooding  cut  the  yield 
considerably  and  the  output  will 
not  match  that  of  1942  or  1943. 
None  the  less,  it  is  an  important 
Manitoba  industry  and  one  to 
which  Superintendent  R.  E.  Tay- 
lor, of  the  Portage  division,  de- 
votes considerable  time  and 
thought. 

Superintendent  Taylor,  inci- 
dentally, was  formerly  in  charge 
of  the  Detroit  division  at  London, 
Ontario,  where  there  are  other 
sugar  beet  factories,  and  came  to 
Winnipeg  with  a  good  working 
knowledge  of  the  beet  traffic.  In 
Manitoba,  however,  the  company 
shares  the  traffic  with  other  rail- 
ways as  well  as  highway  trans- 
port, and  the  movement  is  by  no 
means  as  large  as  the  older  and 
more  highly-developed  southern 
Alberta  industry  provides. 

All  in  all,  it  is  a  'sweet'  traffic 
in  more  ways  than  one. 


it  'TOE* 


■IVCJnf 


if  H  H 


.<A:0' 


*  INVENTIONS  POINT  THE  WAY  we  are  going.  We  adopt  them  for  the  im- 
mediate use  we  make  of  them.  But,  once  adopted,  there  are  hundreds  of  social 
effects,  as  distinct  from  uses,  that  flow  more  or  less  inevitably.  We  buy  an  automo- 
bile to  ride  to  work,  but  once  purchased  it  proceeds  to  change  our  world.  One  in- 
vention, in  a  more  or  less  stationary  world,  would  not  have  a  great  effect  on  our 
luture.  But  there  are  50,000  patents  a  year.  And  they  are  increasing  in  number. 
A  half  million  patents  a  decade  produces  a  terrific  impact  on  society,  starting  a 
turbulent   torrent   of   change.  — Professor   W.   F.   Ocburn 


APRIL,    1945 


41 


ESS?** 
13 


■PUP 


■■■ 


BAKE 


What  Is  Abundance? 


To  understand  what  Technocracy  means  when  it  says  that  every 
adult  on  the  North  American  Continent  can  have  a  standard  of 
living  equivalent  to  that  provided  by  a  $20,000  income,  we  must  get 
rid   of   our  wasteful  Price  System   concepts. 


THE  Brookings  Institute  and 
other  such  organizations  en- 
dowed by  the  Price  System  re- 
cently have  tried  to  tell  us  with 
their  statistical  data  and  investi- 
gations that  the  excess  capacity 
of  our  production  equipment  is 
so  limited  that,  even  if  rent  and 
profit  were  eliminated  entirely, 
and  our  equipment  worked  at  its 
full  load  capacity,  Technocracy 
could  never  come  near  to  supply- 
ing the  $20,000  income  in  goods 
and  services  that  it  claims  can  be 
provided  for  every  adult  on  the 
North  American  Continent  under 
a  non-price  system.  And  even  if 
this  could  be  done  by  an  enor- 
mous increase  of  our  present 
producing  mechanisms — it  is 
claimed  by  them — our  supply  of 
raw  materials  would  be  utterly 
inadequate  to   the   enormous  de- 


Reprinted  from  Technocracy,  A-5.  This 
article  was  ivritten  in  1935,  at  a  time 
when  the  Brookings  Institute  was  trying 
to  prove  that  America  could  produce 
only  30%  more  than  she  did  in  1929. 
Today,  under  the  technological  impact  of 
Total  War,  Technocracy's  analysis  of 
production  capacity  is  being  vindicated 
by  the  march  of  events.  For  example, 
Canada's  manufacturing  industries  are 
producing  three  times  as  much  as  they 
were  when  hostilities  broke  out. 


mand  required  in  order  to  make 
possible  such  a  standard  of  living 
on  such  a  large  scale. 

In  answer,  Technocracy  states 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
raise  the  present  standard  of  liv- 
ing of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
North  American  Continent  to  a 
very  considerable  extent  without 
changing  quite  radically  the  pre- 
sent mode  of  operation  of  our 
social  mechanism. 

Our  contention  is  that  our 
social  mechanism  was  conceived 
and  developed  in  an  era  of  scar- 
city in  which  the  human  body 
was  the  main  engine  of  produc- 
tion. No  matter  how  inefficient 
were  our  methods  of  operation 
from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the 
middle  of  the  19th  Century — 
when  we  first  started  using  the 
energy  of  steam  in  industrial  pro- 
duction— it  would  have  been  im- 
possible to  waste  any  appreciable 
amount  of  our  natural  resources 
as  long  as  the  only  engines  of 
production  were  the  human  be- 
ings, a  few  domesticated  animals, 
and  some  crude  wind-mills  and 
water-wheels. 


42 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


■ 


■I 


,-■**, 


Now  after  the  practical  devel- 
opment of  the  steam  engine  and 
the  subsequent  discovery  and 
development  of  the  gas  engine 
and  electrical  generator,  we  have 
built  such  a  tremendous  collec- 
tion of  engines  of  every  descrip- 
tion that,  if  we  should  put  them 
all  to  work  continuously,  it  would 
be  physically  impossible  to  keep 
them  all  in  operation — first,  be- 
cause we  do  not  possess  the  un- 
limited supply  of  energy  and 
raw  materials  needed  for  such 
operation,  and  second,  because 
we  would  be  flooded  with  such  a 
tremendous  volume  of  goods  that 
we  would  not  know  what  to  do 
with  them. 

But  in  a  Techtiate,  the  one 
billion  horsepower  of  prime 
movers  installed  today  would  not 
all  be  put  to  work.  It  would  be 
reduced  to  a  mere  fraction,  and 
this  fraction  kept  operating  24 
hours  per  day  as  any  efficiently 
built  and  efficiently  run  mechan- 
ism is  intended  to  be  operated. 
Today,  mechanisms  are  built  and 
operated  under  the  controlling 
limitations  of  the  Price  System. 
The  usefulness  of  the  products 
and  the  efficiency  of  the  construc- 
tion and  operation  of  the  produc- 
tion mechanisms  are  only  inci- 
dental to  the  main  purpose  of 
production,  which  is  the  creation 
of  profits  and  the  preservation  of 
the  Price  System.  Abolishing  the 

APRIL,   1945 


Price  System  will  involve  as  a 
natural  and  unavoidable  conse- 
quence not  only  the  elimination 
of  profit,  but,  most  important  of 
all,  a  shift  of  emphasis  from  the 
monetary  to  the  physical  cost  of 
production  and  distribution. 

When  we  consider  the  tremen- 
dous amounts  of  coal  and  oil, 
iron  and  copper,  lumber  and  oth- 
er non-replaceable  natural  re- 
sources that  have  been  wantonly 
wasted  in  this  country  during  the 
last  100  years — particularly  the 
last  50  years — and  when  we  com- 
pare this  tremendous  waste  with 
the  total  amount  of  comfort  and 
leisure  that  has  been  added  to 
our  lives  by  the  industrial  mech- 
anism which  allowed  the  waste, 
we  must  be  amazed  at  the  small 
results  achieved  at  the  cost  of  the 
irreparable  loss  of  our  natural 
resources. 

When  it  is  contended  by  some 
critics  of  Technocracy  that  it 
would  be  physically  impossible, 
with  our  present  industrial  and 
agricultural  equipment  and  with 
the  natural  resources  available  in 
the  North  American  Continent,  to 
produce  the  volume  of  services 
and  goods  that  Technocracy 
claims  can  be  given  to  every  hu- 
man being  in  this  area,  the  error 
that  they  make,  if  they  honestly 
believe  what  they  say — and  many 
of  them  are  not  honest,  because 
they  know  better — is  due  to  their 


43 


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H 


Ml 


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■FV! 

n5H 

1 

J.s'."'  •'  1 

m 

1 

WBfi9i 

1 

MH> 

Mpj 

Ktf 

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m 

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■ 


ability  to  conceive  of  production 
and  distribution  only  in  terms  of 
the  present  inefficient  and  waste- 
ful operation  of  the  Price  System. 
They  are  either  incapable  of  fac- 
ing or  unwilling  to  face  the  tech- 
nical and  social  implications  of 
the  elimination  of  the  Price  Sys- 
tem and  the  tremendous  effect 
such  a  momentous  step  would 
have  on  the  industrial  and  agri- 
cultural set-up  of  the  North 
American  Continent. 

Let  us  consider  a  few  examples 
in  order  to  make  perfectly  clear 
what  we  mean.  We  are  building 
today  automobiles  that  after  run- 
ning fifty  or  sixty  thousand  miles 
must  be  scrapped — and  are  in- 
tended to  be  scrapped — in  order 
to  provide  a  continuous  replace- 
ment market  for  new  automo- 
biles. The  same  is  true  of  textile 
products,  of  shoes,  clothing,  and 
hundreds  of  articles  of  everyday 
use  that  must  be  and  are  manu- 
factured of  inferior  quality  in 
order  to  keep  our  production 
plants  running,  our  transporta- 
tion system  alive,  and  our  distri- 
buting system  busy.  From  a 
technological  standpoint  there  is 
no  excuse  whatever  for  such 
wasteful  operation  of  our  indus- 
trial mechanism.  We  have  the 
technological  knowledge  and  the 
materials  needed  for  producing 
automobiles,  shirts,  shoes,  clothes, 
and  what  not,  that  will  last  from 


five  to  ten  times  the  present  life 
of  these  things,  and  the  same 
machinery  that  is  used  today  for 
the  manufacture  of  inferior  pro- 
ducts could  be  used  for  the  pro- 
duction of  superior  ones,  thus 
saving  materials,  energy,  and  hu- 
man effort. 

There  is  no  need  for  us  to  op- 
erate our  present  total  mileage 
of  railroads.  We  would  trans- 
port one-tenth  of  our  freight  if 
we  could  manufacture  goods 
which  would  last  ten  times  long- 
er; and  we  could  greatly  reduce 
all  equipment  by  using  only  the 
most  up-to-date  types  now  avail- 
able, if  we  were  not  hampered  by 
Price  System  considerations  that 
have  no  relation  whatsoever  to 
the  physical  operation  of  our 
social  mechanism. 

There  would  be  no  need  of 
equipping  and  operating  1,500,000 
retail  stores  in  this  country  (the 
U.S.)  if  we  were  not  operating 
and  distributing  under  a  Price 
System. 

All  the  delivery  wagons,  auto- 
mobiles, telephones,  adding  ma- 
chines, typewriters,  and  cash 
registers  that  we  are  building, 
transporting,  and  servicing  today 
for  our  wholesalers,  retailers,  ad- 
vertising agents,  brokers,  bank- 
ers, insurance  agents,  and  hund- 
reds of  others  would  be  reduced 
to  a  small  fraction  of  the  present 
number. 


44 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


■ 

■■Ki 

H 

i 

B 

1  ■*    \<r 

2H 

■ 

■n 

Bl 

■  -. 

ffig 

ps 

■ 

mF*  * 

We  have  26,000,000  automobiles 
nominally  in  operation  today; 
however,  the  average  use  that  we 
make  of  them  is  only  360  hours 
per  year.  This  means  that  they 
are  on  the  roads  and  running  an 
average  of  only  one  hour  per  day. 
If  today  we  were  operating  our 
cars  at  only  a  50%  load  factor, 
they  would  be  running  12  hours 
per  day  and  we  could  have  with 
not  more  than  2,500,000  cars  the 
same  use  that  we  have  today 
with  26,000,000. 

In  New  York  City,  there  are 
50,000  establishments  catering  to 
the  distribution  of  food  products 
to  the  city  population,  and  they 
employ  under  normal  conditions 
(1929)  nearly  200,000  people.  Of 
the  50,000  establishments,  9,000 
are  butcher  stores  and  14,000 
grocery  stores.  It  is  estimated 
by  Technocracy  that  the  current 
volume  of  food  stuff  distributed 
by  the  50,000  establishments  to 
the  population  of  7,000,000  in  the 
metropolitan  area  could  be  effi- 
ciently handled  by  250  primary 
and  2,000  secondary  depots,  em- 
ploying a  total  of  18,000  people, 
and  operating  on  a  24-hour  basis; 
and  this  estimate  allows  an  over- 
load factor  of  40  %  without  re- 
quiring an  increase  in  personnel. 
The  physical  cost  of  the  distri- 
bution would  be  the  same  wheth- 
er these  50,000  establishments 
were    collectively   owned   or  pri- 


vately owned.  The  only  signifi- 
cant fact  is  that  the  distribution 
of  the  food  is  inefficiently  done, 
and  the  only  way  to  lower  the 
physical  cost  of  distribution  is  to 
change  from  an  inefficient  method 
to  an  efficient  one. 

And  so  it  goes,  in  every  branch 
of  Price  System  production  and 
distribution. 

In  order  to  understand  what 
Technocracy  means  when  it  says 
that  every  adult  on  the  North 
American  Continent  can  have  a 
standard  of  living  comparable  to 
that  given  by  a  present  day  in- 
come of  $20,000,  we  must  get  rid 
of  a  lot  of  wasteful  Price  System 
concepts,  and  give  up  some 
standards  of  living  that  were  en- 
demic to  the  operation  of  a  Price 
System  civilization  but  can  not 
possibly  be  retained  in  the  ener- 
gy civilization  visualized  by  Tech- 
nocracy. 

If  our  conception  of  a  high 
standard  of  living  for  all  consists 
of  a  two-car  garage  and  a  chicken 
in  every  pot,  while  preserving 
our  present  inefficient  way  of  us- 
ing motor  cars  and  of  conveying 
the  chickens  from  the  farm  to  the 
pot,  neither  Technocracy  nor 
Democracy,  nor  any  other  form  of 
civil  control,  can  perform  the 
miracle  for  us.  There  is  not  en- 
ough room  for  ourselves  and  the 
cars  to  move  around  this  coun- 
try, and  there  would  be  nobody 


.*  * « 


*m 


HffiK 


*m. 


5K 


xbs 


APRIL,  1945 


45 


■ 


'•\ 


■ 


_HH_ 


£g  Bl  B      Kg 

JMBmbhTK  ■■km? 


to  fetch  and  carry  the  chickens 
for  us,  if  we  all  had  a  $20,000  in- 
come to  spend  under  the  present 
set-up. 

This  is  not  our  conception  of 
the  abundance  of  tomorrow. 
Technocracy  does  not  propose  to 
transform   the   social  life   on   the 


North  American  Continent  and 
make  it  look  like  a  huge  Coney 
Island  on  a  Monday  morning, 
with  the  inevitable  accumula- 
tion of  trash  and  rubbish  inci- 
dental to  the  abundant  life  of  the 
previous  Sunday. 

— William  Knight 


Many  Uses  for  Nylon 


WILMINGDON.  Delaware. — Nylon  stockings  will  probably  not  be 
available  until  after  the  defeat  of  Japan,  according  to  the  present 
outlook  at  Du  Pont's,  which  owns  the  patents  on  the  highly  prized  syn- 
thetic yarn.  However,  with  yarn-production  facilities  expanded  for  war 
purposes  to  180  percent  of  pre-Pearl  Harbor  capacity,  it  is  anticipated 
that  the  sheer  hosiery  will  reach  the  retail  market  in  large  quantities 
within  two  months  after  America's  victory  in  the  Pacific. 

New  uses  for  nylon  are  part  of  this  corporation's  wartime  prepar- 
ations for  peace.  Two  existing  nylon  plants,  at  Seaford,  Del.,  and  Mar- 
tinsville, Va.,  are  being  enlarged  and  a  third  plant  is  to  be  built  near 
Chattanooga,  Tenn.  Total  capacity  will  enable  Du  Pont  to  deliver  11,000 
to  11,500  tons  of  nylon  hosiery  yarn  annually,  which  is  roughly  estimat- 
ed as  enough  for  every  woman  in  North  America  to  have  10  or  11  pairs 
a  year. 

Windows  curtains  will  not  require  stretching.  Window  screens  of 
nylon  will  be  rust  proof  and  can  be  rolled  up  rather  than  taken  down 
in  the  winter.  A  nylon  rain  coat  can  be  rolled  and  carried  in  a  hip 
pocket. 

As  a  plastic,  nylon  is  an  improved  insulator  that  perfects  the  function 
of  electronics  including  television  and  F-M.  As  a  coating,  it  can  weath- 
proof  outdoor  furniture.  On  bearings  in  machinery,  it  requires  no  lubri- 
cant except  water.  Hair  springs  have  been  fashioned  from  nylon.  De- 
signed as  any  one  of  a  variety  of  fabrics,  it  resists  moisture  and  flames 
and  doesn't  tempt  destructive  insects  and  molds. 

— Vancouver  News-Herald 


46 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


Mes  on  Organization 


Science,  when  she  has  accomplished  all  her  triumphs  in  her  order, 
will  still  have  to  go  back,  when  the  time  comes,  to  assist  in  building 
up  a  new  creed  by  which  man  can  live  .  .  .  — James  Morley 


■ 


\   4  ' 


TECHNOCRACY  INC.  is  a 
Continental  Organization 
proposing  a  new  form  of  social 
organization  to  operate  the  entire 
social  mechanism  of  this  Contin- 
ent. Technocracy,  in  offering  to 
the  people  of  this  Area  the  pre- 
liminary specifications  of  the 
'New  America  of  Abundance'  is 
laying  down  the  greatest  social 
objective  ever  projected  for  hu- 
man society. 

The  Continent  of  North  America,  on 
which  we  live,  contains  more  energy 
resources,  more  minerals,  and  larger 
areas  of  fertile  ground  than  any  other 
single  body  of  land.  If  Japan,  China, 
and  India  could  be  laid  over  the  surface 
of  it,  there  would  be  enough  space  left 
over  to  accommodate  Germany,  Great 
Britain,  Italy,  France,  and  Poland;  and 
there  would  then  be  a  million  square 
miles  to  spare.  The  population  of  these 
countries  is  at  least  seven  times  North 
America's,  yet  all  of  these  populations 
could  exist  from  the  produce  capable 
of   being   raised   here. 

Let  us  emphasize:  North  America — ■ 
area,  approximately  eight  and  one 
quarter  million  square  miles;  popula- 
tion, around  one  hundred  and  ninety 
million  people;  power,  over  fifty  per- 
cent of  the  world's  total ;  resources,  the 
lion's  share! 

Not  only  does  it  contain  the  lion's 
share  of  the  world's  known  natural  re- 
sources, but  it  also  possesses  the  largest 
and  finest  array  of  technological  equip- 
ment, along  with  the  trained  personnel 
to   operate   it,   on   the   face    of   the   earth. 

APRIL,   1945 


Extending  as  it  does,  from  the  polar 
regions  to  the  tropics,  it  contains  every 
conceivable  kind  of  climatic  condition, 
abounding  in  natural  scenery  beyond 
description.  It  is  bounded  on  either 
side  by  mighty  oceans,  freeing  it  from 
the  shackles  of  foreign  supervision  and 
protecting  it  from  easy  foreign  invasion. 
From  a  purely  physical  point  of  view, 
there  is  no  other  area  in  the  world 
where  it  is  possible  to  establish  such  a 
high  standard   of  living. 

By  applying  the  same  engineering 
technique  to  our  social  system  as  that 
used  in  our  productive  processes  Tech- 
nocracy states  that  it  will  be  possible  to 
achieve  on  this  Continent  a  civilization 
utterly  beyond  man's  present  compre- 
hension. The  conditions  necessary  for 
the  operation  of  such  a  civilization  are 
here.  The  'New  America'  will  be  the 
next  step  if  we  can  make  sufficient  prep- 
arations now  to  prevent  the  destruction 
of  our  already  existing  physical  advant- 
ages. Technocrats  are  not  letting  this 
challenge  go  unanswered.  Technocracy 
is  the  only  organization  preparing  for  a 
new  social  order  of  abundance  and 
security  for  all  on  the  basis  of  a  tech- 
nologically planned  operation  of  the 
Continental  mechanism. 

Technocrats  will  continue,  as  they 
have  in  the  past,  to  prepare  themselves 
to  function  to  the  best  of  their  ability 
under  the  stress  of  changing  economic 
conditions.  In  line  with  this  it  becomes 
their  duty  to  carry  on  an  educational 
program,  unemotional  and  straight  to 
the  point,  for  themselves,  as  well  as  for 
others  who  are  coming  to  a  realization 
of  the  forces  underlying  our  great  social 
change.  A  disciplined  organization  is 
being  built.  It  is  necessary  at  "this  time 
for  all  citizens  to  commence  a  careful 
investigation  of  the  basic  social  facts, 
being    sure    to    eliminate    any   semblance 


47 


of   emotions,   beliefs,   preconceptions,   or 
desires. 

It  is  by  this  method  alone  that  one 
may  obtain  a  coherent  knowledge  of 
this  Continent,  its  inhabitants,  its 
physical  conditions,  end,  therefore,  oi 
the  inevitable  progression  of  events  re- 
sulting   from    these    existing    conditions. 

Every  capable  individual  must  learn. 
Technocracy  stands  ready  with  the  in- 
formation. An  alert  and  active  mental 
attitude  is  the  most  important  require- 
ment needed  to  conduct  such  an  in- 
vestigation. 

There  is  nothing  mysterious 
about  the  operation  and  plans  of 
Technocracy  Inc.  Individuals 
whose  impatient  minds  seek  to 
see  all  of  the  future  even  to  its 
last-minute  details  forget  that  the 
building  of  a  scientific  method  is 
through  painstaking  analysis  of 
all  known  facts  plus  a  constant 
search  for  new  data,  and  that 
such  a  scientific  approach  is  as 
applicable  to  a  social  structure 
as  to  an  industrial  mechanism. 
There  is  nothing  mysterious 
then,  in  the  ultimate  control 
mechanism  of  the  Technate. 

The  fundamental  blueprints 
for  the  functional  sequences  are 
known  and  the  exact  detailed 
methods  for  the  scientific  opera- 
tion of  each  sequence  are  at  pre- 
sent being  worked  out.  The  ob- 
vious fact  that  such  an  under- 
taking is  difficult  and  highly  com- 
plex and,  hence,  slow  should  be 
sufficient  answer  to  those  who 
feel  that  they  would  like  to  know 
everything   this   minute.     Be   as- 


sured that,  as  the  finer  details  of 
our  organization  are  perfected, 
and  its  facilities  increased,  the 
membership  will  be  given  a  full 
knowledge  of  the  results. 

Technocracy  is  neither  radical  nor 
reactionary,  conservative  nor  liberal, 
political  party  nor  racket.  Technocracy 
Inc.  stands  alone  as  the  Technological 
Army  of  the  New  America.  It  has 
nothing  in  common  with  any  other  or- 
ganization and  cannot  be  identified  in 
any  way,  shape,  or  form  with  republi- 
canism, communism,  democracy,  liberal- 
ism, fascism,  conservatism,  farmer  labor- 
ism,  commonwealth  federations,  social 
credit,  or  any  other  politico-economic 
neurosis  of  the  Price  System. 

Technocracy  will  not  appeal  to  the 
people  of  this  Continent  to  indulge  in 
either  bullets  or  ballots,  or  to  oppose 
or  overthrow  anything.  It  will  not 
waste  its  efforts  in  asking  its  members 
to  protest  against  any  of  the  idiocies  of 
this  Price  System.  It  will  always  real- 
ize that  the  most  efficient  disintegrators 
of  the  Price  System  are  its  present 
political  and   financial  leaders. 

Technocracy  will  never  ask  the  public 
to  vote  any  member  or  officer  of  Tech- 
nocracy Inc.  into  participating  in  the 
political  administration  of  this  Price 
System.  Technocracy  Inc.,  as  a  disci- 
plined Organization  with  a  definite  es- 
prit de  corps,  can  never  permit  any 
Technocrat  to  hold  any  position  the  oc- 
cupation of  which  might  possibly  place 
him  in  a  political  racket  where  he  could 
be  framed  or  vilified  in  such  a  way  as 
to  bring  discredit  to  both  himself  and 
our  Organization. 

Technocracy  Inc.  may  take  political 
action,  not  as  a  political  party  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  political  administration 
of  this  Price  System,  but  only  in  offer- 
ing the  people  of  this  Continent  an 
orderly  means  of  abolishing  the  Price 
System.  The  New  America  cannot  Iv 
reached  along  any  fascist  highway  from 
Rome;  no  communist  pathway  of  pro- 
letarian dictatorship  from  Moscow  will 
avail  us  in  the  slightest;  and  no  nazi 
roadway  to  Berlin  can  be  built  here. 
The  highway  to  the  America  of  Tomor- 


48 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


H  6 


row  will  be  designed  by  Americans  with 
their  unsurpassed  technological  experi- 
ence and  without  regard  to  European 
philosophic  concepts.  America's  high- 
way will  be  built  by  North  Americans 
for  all  Americans  from  the  Panama- 
Caribbean    litoral    to    the    Pole. 

Technology  has  solved  the  problems 
of  production.  Technocracy  has  the 
solution  to  the  problems  of  distribution 
and  security.  Technology  demands 
social  change,  although  most  of  the 
people  of  this  Continent  are  not  yet 
ready.  When  they  are.  Technocracy  Inc. 
will  also  be  ready  .  Therefore  this  Or- 
ganization is  asking  the  people  of  this 
Continent:  'When  are  you  going  to 
start  in  earnest  on  the  greatest  con- 
structive work  in  the  social  history  of 
man?' 

While  details  of  the  course  of 
events  in  the  next  months  or 
years  is  beyond  the  scope  of 
scientific  prediction,  it  is  perfect- 
ly clear  that  the  immediate  future 
of  America  under  the  capricious 
sway  of  Price  System  operation 
will  be,  as  the  immediate  past  has 
been,  a  succession  of  emergencies 
or  near-emergencies  on  the  Con- 
tinental scale,  any  one  of  which 
could  catch  this  unstable  system 
off-balance  and  plunge  America 
into  politico-economic  chaos.  The 
resultant  mass  movement  will  be 
in  effect  a  repudiation  of  the 
'status  quo'  of  business  and  poli- 
tical leadership;  yet  only  capable 
leadership,  ready  with  positive, 
effective  and  immediate  measures 
upon  which  social  decision  may 
crystallize,  can  prevent  the  loss 
of  millions  of  lives.  Technoc- 
racy,   it  has   been   ironically   ob- 

APRIL,  1945 


served,  is  in  possession  of  more 
data  on  physical  operations  and 
trends  than  any  other  scientific 
or  engineering  society.  Technoc- 
racy will  therefore  be  ready  at  all 
times  with  specifications  for  ap- 
propriate steps  to  be  taken  in  the 
event  of  any  probable  emergency. 
The  steps  proposed  will  of  course 
depend  upon  the  character  of  the 
emergency. 

Technocracy's  program  of  Total 
Conscription  of  Men,  Machines, 
Materiel  and  Money  is  a  case  in 
point.  It  is  a  program  of  total 
mobilization  for  all-out  war;  it  is 
also  an  emergency  transitional 
device  suited  to  the  needs  of  this 
time.  But  for  the  extraordinary 
and  unsurpassed  national  valor  of 
certain  of  our  allies,  and  the  in- 
credible blunders  of  our  enemies, 
a  social  emergency  would  doubt- 
less have  been  precipitated  in  the 
face  of  enemy  action. 

The  war  is  not  yet  won,  but  the  mind 
of  the  businessman  and  his  cohorts  in 
government  is  inevitably  turning  to  the 
prospects  for  postwar  business.  The 
question  is  not  merely,  'How  will  I  fare 
with  my  competitors?'  but  'Will  there  be 
a  business  system?'  His  cogitation  on 
this  is  what  he  calls  'Postwar  Planning.' 

Let  every  North  American  remember 
this:  All  postwar  planning  issued  to  date 
under  the  guise  of  being  for  the  national 
welfare  is  a  misnomer,  a  fraud,  and  a 
deception  on  the  public.  Its  prime  pur- 
pose is  to  preserve  the  status  quo  of  the 
Price  System,  to  freeze  social  change. 
Its  first  objective  is  to  get  government 
out  of  business,  to  grab  all  of  the  mag- 
nificent new  plants  and  equipment  built 


49 


by    public    money    for    the    national    de- 
fense. 

This  policy,  Technocracy  warns,  is, 
nationally  and  Continentally,  a  danger- 
ous one.  It  is  a  policy  which  will  in- 
crease the  complexity  of  the  postwar 
period  by  introducing  in  United  States 
and  Canada  a  conflict  between  public 
and  private  interest  wherein  business 
will  be  seeking  to  suddenly  cut  the  war- 
geared  economy  loose  from  the  meager 
planning    imposed    by    political    bureau- 


cracy under  the  necessities  of  war. 

This  is  always  the  way  of  reaction — 
to  seek  to  go  backwards  in  the  face  of 
a  trend.  By  contrast  Technocracy's  pro- 
gram of  Total  Conscription  is  built  for 
the  trend.  Instead  of  seeking  to  move 
backward,  it  goes  forward  with  the  revo- 
lutionary developments  which  the  war 
has  produced  in  the  Continent's  produc- 
tive possibilities.  — E.  L.  Fearman 

(continued  next  month) 


OUR  TIME  is  rich  in  inventive  minds,  the  inventions  of  which  could  facilitate  our 
lives  considerably.  We  are  crossing  the  seas  by  power  and  utilize  power  also  in 
order  to  relieve  humanity  from  all  tiring  muscular  work.  We  have  learned  to  fly 
and  we  are  able  to  send  messages  and  news  without  any  difficulty  over  the  entire 
world  through  electric  waves. 

However,  the  production  and  distribution  of  commodities  is  entirely  unorganized 
so  that  everybody  must  live  in  fear  of  being  eliminated  from  the  economic  cycle,  in 
this  way  suffering  for  the  want  of  everything.  Furthermore,  people  living  in  different 
countries  kill  each  other  at  irregular  time  intervals,  so  that  also  for  this  reason  any- 
one who  thinks  about  the  future  must  live  in  fear  and  terror.  This  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  intelligence  and  character  of  the  masses  are  incomparably  lower  than  the  in- 
telligence and  character  of  the  few  who  produce  something  valuable  for  the  commun- 
ity. — Albert  Einstein 

•k  TAKING  JOBS  AWAY  FROM  MEN  is  a  most  unfortunate  result  of  the  increased 
efficiency  of  machines.  Note,  for  instance,  the  electric  eye,  said  to  be  the  greatest 
invention  of  the  20th  century.  It  sees  better  than  the  human  eye,  being  able  to 
detect  counterfeit  money.  It  does  not  get  tired,  being  able  to  assort  different  ob- 
jects 24  hours  a  day,  7  days  a  week.  Counting,  opening  doors  for  warehouses,  regu- 
lating traffic,  turning  on  electric  signs  at  twilight,  detecting  defective  objects  on  the 
assembly  line,  acting  as  night  watchman  and  reporting  burglars,  are  only  a  few  of 
the  almost  innumerable  feats  the  electric  eye  can  perform.  No  wonder,  then,  that 
inventions   replace   human   beings.  — Professor   W.   F.   Ocburn 

*  CHANGE  WITHIN  SCIENCE  always  means  social  change  for  the  better— the 
kind  of  social  change  that  radio,  the  automobile,  the  railway,  the  telephone,  the 
electric  motor  have  brought  about.  Social  change  through  science  is  inevitable 
even  if  we  leave  the  universities  and  the  industrial  laboratories  to  their  old  devices. 
But  give  us  integrated  research,  social  purpose  and  direction  and  we  shall  in  ten  years 
make  more  discoveries  than  we  have  made  in  the  last  fifty. 

— Waldemar  Kaempffert,  science  editor  of  Netv  York  Times 

*  THE  GREAT  ROLE  OF  TECHNOLOGY  in  history  is  clouded  by  the  devotion 
with  which  we  worship  heroes.  General  Ulysses  S.  Grant  whipped  Robert  E.  Lee 
and  won  the  War  between  the  States.  We  made  him  President  of  the  United  States 
and  he  toured  Europe  as  a  world  hero.  But  in  reality  it  was  the  factory  machines 
in  the  North  that  prevailed  over  the  hoe  and  the  cotton  gin  of  the  South.  The 
mechanical  resources  of  the  North  were  destined  to  win,  whether  Grant  had  ever 
lived  or  not.  —Professor  W.  F.  Ocburn 


50 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


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WHAT? 

Technocracy  is  science  in  the  social 
field.  Encyclopedia  Americana  says: 
'Whatever  the  future  of  Technocracy, 
one  must  fairly  say  that  it  is  the 
only  program  of  social  and  economic 
reconstruction  which  is  in  complete 
intellectual  and  technical  accord  with 
the  age  in  which  we  live.' 

WHEN? 

Technocracy  originated  in  the  winter 
of  1918-1919  when  Howard  Scott 
formed  a  group  of  scientists,  engin- 
eers, and  economists  that  became 
known  in  1920  as  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance— a  research  organization.  Some 
of  the  better  known  names  in  the 
Technical  Alliance  are  of  interest, 
such  as:  Frederick  L.  Ackerman,  ar- 
chitect; L.  K.  Comstock,  electrical 
engineer;  Stuart  Chase,  C.P.A.  (now 
well-known  writer);  Bassett  Jones, 
electrical  engineer;  Leland  Olds, 
statistician  (now  Federal  Power 
Commissioner) ;  Benton  Mackaye 
(now  in  the  Forestry  Department); 
Charles  P.  Steinmetz  and  Thorstein 
Veblen  (both  now  dead).  Howard 
Scott  was  Chief  Engineer.  In  1930 
the  group  was  first  known  as  Tech- 
nocracy. In  1933  it  was  incorporated 
under  the  laws  of  the  state  of  New 
York  as  a  non-profit,  non-political, 
non-sectarian  membership  organiza- 
tion. In  1934  Howard  Scott,  Direct- 
or-in-Chief,  made  his  first  Continent- 
al lecture  tour  which  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  present  Continental 
membership  organization.  Since  1934 
Technocracy  has  grown  steadily  with- 
out any  spectacular  spurts,  revivals, 
collapses,  or  rebirths.  This  is  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  press  has 
generally  'held  the  lid'  on  Technoc- 
racy, until  early  in  1942  when  it 
made  the  tremendous  'discovery'  that 
Technocracy  had  been  reborn  sudden- 
ly, full-fledged  with  all  its  members, 
headquarters,   etc.,  in   full   swing! 


WHY? 

Technocracy's  survey  of  the  econo- 
mic situation  in  North  America  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  de- 
velopment a  process  of  progressive 
social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instability 
reaches  the  limits  of  social  tolerance 
and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be 
installed  on  this  Continent  a  social 
mechanism  competent  to  meet  the 
needs  of  its  people.  Technocracy 
finds  further  that  the  day  when 
social  operations  on  this  Continent 
can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now 
necessary  that  there  be  applied  in 
the  social  field  the  quantitative 
methods  of  physical  science.  Tech- 
nocracy, therefore,  proposes  that  the 
North  American  Continent  be  operat- 
ed as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This 
control  would  operate  the  area  under 
a  balanced-load  system  of  production 
and  distribution,  whereunder  there 
would  be  distributed  purchasing 
power  commensurate  with  the  re- 
sources and  the  continuous  full-load 
operation  of  the  physical  equipment, 
with  the  guarantee  of  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living,  equality  of  income,  and 
economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of 
working  hours,  to  every  adult  in- 
habitant. 

HOW? 

At  this  stage  the  objectives  of  Tech- 
nocracy are  first,  the  education  of 
the  people  of  North  America  to  a 
realization  of  the  conditions  behind 
the  social  crisis,  and  second,  the  or- 
ganization of  all  those  willing  to  in- 
vestigate and  interest  themselves  in- 
to an  informed,  disciplined,  and  func- 
tionally capable  body  whose  know- 
ledge and  ability  can  be  -called  upon 
to  prevent  chaos  in  North  America 
at  that  time,  now  imminent,  when 
the  Price  System  can  no  longer  be 
made  to  operate.     . 


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Life  in  the  lew  America 


TECHNOCRACY'S  balanced  load  system  of  Continental  control  cannot  be  bribed 
or  gypped,  and  personal  favoritism  doesn"t  count  in  its  operation;  being  some- 
body's son  or  brother-in-law  won't  get  you  anywhere.  Personal  influence  under 
this  system  will  be  of  no  use  except  as  an  amusing  pastime.  The  success  of  the 
individual  under  such  a  system  will  not  be  gauged  by  his  bank  account,  his  bonds, 
or  the  pleasing  personality  of  his  Arrow-collar  appearance,  or  his  nicety  in  rendering 
Emily  Post  amenities  The  success  of  the  individual  will  be  determined  solely  by 
his   capacity  for   competent   functioning   in   phase  with   the   balanced-load   operation. 

The  citizens  of  this  Continent,  under  such  a  system,  will  have  no  debt  claims 
against  other  human  beings.  They  will  not  be  able  to  mortgage  their  fellow  men 
and  their  unborn  children.  The  citizens  of  the  New  America  will  have  no  fear 
of  taxes  or  unemployment  because  neither  will  exist.  They  will  have  no  need  for 
insurance  policies  and  annuities.  It  will  be  socially  cheaper  to  guarantee  security 
to  all  from  birth  to  death. 

Greater  purchasing  power  will  be  provided  all  adult  citizens  than  any  civilization 
has  ever  known.  Toil  and  poverty  will  not  exist,  due  to  the  greater  and  more  effici- 
ent use  of  machine  power,  resulting  in  a  greater  volume  of  goods  and  services 
scientifically  distributed   to  everyone.  — Howard  Scott 

(Section  Stamp) 


~\/f     A     V7"  PUBLISHED  IN  CANADA  BY  SEC.  1  -  R.  D.  12349  /^    P« 

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THE   ONLY    MAGAZINE    IN   CANADA   THAT   IS   PREPARING   THE   PEOPLE   OF  THIS 
COUNTRY    FOR   SOCIAL   CHANGE 


MAY,  1945 


VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 


No.   83 


—STAFF- 


DONALD  Bruce   Editor 

W.  D.  Ellwyn  Assistant  Editor 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Assistant  Editor 

Rupert  N.  Urquhart  ....  Assistant  Editor 


M.  C.  McKay  Business  Manager 

G.  H.  Connor  Circulation  Manager 

V.   A.   Knudsen   Research 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Production 


Fear  of  the  Future  3 

Are  the  Bankers  Becoming  Bankrupt?  4 

Our  Technological  Revolution  18 

A   Burning   Shame  26 

Parking  Headache?  —  Try  a  TC  Pill  28 

PMH  —  Production  Per  Manhour  32 

Visual  Education  of  History 34 

What's  New  in  Farming? 38 

Canada's  Iron  Mining  Industry  41 

Notes  on  Organization 46 


Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349,  Techno- 
cracy Inc.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies  25  cents.  Twelve  issues  for  $2.50; 
six  issues  for  $1.25.  Bundle  rates  10  to  100,  20  cents  per  copy;  100  copies  or 
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Ottawa.     Printed  in  Canada. 


PRINTERS 


FRONT  COVER 

At  the  Kingston  plant  of  the  Aluminum  Company  of  Canada.  Huge  circular  saws, 
powerful  hammer  presses  and  rollers  mould  the  aluminum  into  sheets  for  aircraft 
production,  into  propellers  for  planes,  into  long  tubes  and  bars  for  struts  and  rib- 
bings. Photo  shows  a  woman  helper  working  on  a  drawbench  that  starts  a  bloom 
reduction  from  3%-inch  diameter  to  1V4  diameter.  The  tube  is  reduced  under  a 
pressure  of  7l/2  tons.  (National   Film   Board) 


Fear  of  the  Future 


The  citizens  of  this  Continent  are  dogged  by  one  main  spectre — 
the  fear  of  insecurity  in  the  postwar  period.  Today,  more  brightly 
than  ever,  Technocracy  shines  like  a  beacon  light  in  a  dark  world 
of  gloom  and  despair. 


AS  VICTORY  approaches  in 
Europe,  the  citizens  of  this 
Continent  are  starting  to  sober  up 
from  the  most  glorious  binge  in 
history.  They  are  jittery,  pale 
and  shaken  at  the  thought  of  'the 
morning  after.' 

The  stock  market  reflects  the 
state  of  the  people  of  North  Am- 
erica. With  each  important  ad- 
vance on  the  battlefronts  it  drops 
sharply  in  fearful  anticipation  of 
the  postwar  future. 

Our  businessmen  reveal  their 
dread  of  the  postwar  economic 
unknown  by  screaming  hysteric- 
ally for  a  revival  of  'free  enter- 
prise.' Like  the  people  in  Jacob's 
story  The  Monkey's  Paw,  they 
couldn't  bear  to  face  the  horrible 
cadaver  if  it  were  injected  with 
life.  They  want  the  Government 
to  get  out  of  business  and  not 
compete  in  any  way,  and  at  the 
same  time  they  are  afraid  to 
stand  on  their  own  feet  and  are 
demanding  that  the  Government 
subsidize  them  to  keep  them  go- 
ing. 

Our   labor   leaders   are   milling 


around  talking  about  'full  em- 
ployment' and  trying  to  combat 
the  businessmen  who  are  at- 
tempting to  force  wages  down 
from  the  high  level  they  reached 
during  war. 

Our  politicians  are  playing 
their  traditional  role  of  referee 
between  capital  and  labor,  and, 
in  trying  to  interpret  what  the 
public  wants,  end  up  with  their 
heads  in  the  sand — also  a  char- 
acteristic  position  of  the   public. 

The  public  as  a  whole  is  dogged 
by  one  main  spectre — the  fear  of 
insecurity.  They  remember  the 
Great  Depression.  The  men  on 
the  fighting  fronts  are  asking" 
anxiously  about  preparations  at 
home  to  provide  them  with  jobs 
when  the  shooting  stops.  The 
war  workers  are  wondering  wor- 
riedly what  they  will  do  when 
hostilities  cease.  A  frown  of  un- 
certainty and  indecision  wrinkles 
almost  every  brow. 

Today,  more  brightly  than  ever, 
Technocracy  shines  like  a  beacon 
light  in  a  dark  world  of  gloom 
and  despair.  — The  Editor 


MAY,  1945 


Are  the  Bankers  Becoming  Bankrupt? 

North  American  Banking  is  a  simple  accounting  procedure,  yet 
'It's  dead,  but  it  won't  lie  down!'  A  survey  of  some  current  banking 
worries  and  a  demonstration  of  the  futility  of  endeavouring  to  re- 
suscitate a  Continental  corpse. 


BEFORE  we  analyze  some  of 
the  statements  of  Assets  and 
Liabilities  of  certain  Canadian 
banks  as  advertised  through  in- 
sertions in  the  daily  press,  it  will 
be  advisable  that  we  consider  at 
some  length  a  few  of  the  details 
that  go  into  the  constitution  of 
what  we  today  think  of  as  'bank- 
ing.' 

To  most  people  banks  may  be 
included  within  the  classification 
of  that  which  is  unknowable,  for 
they  have  remained  until  quite 
recently  forever  aloof  from  public 
appeal,  bearing  rather  haughtily 
a  certain  frigid  condescension  to- 
wards the  majority  of  their  cus- 
tomers, to  the  end  that  the  aver- 
age North  American  has  never 
thought  much  about  them,  nor 
endeavoured,  even  hazily,  to  un- 
derstand their  method  of  opera- 
tion and  the  reason  for  their  ex- 
istence. 

Like  so  much  within  our  mod- 
ern topsy-turvy  economy,  banks 
have  been  'taken  for  granted,' 
their  actions  never  questioned, 
and  their  operating  characteris- 
tics seldom  scanned  for  a  hint  of 
the   relation   of  banking    to    the 


society  within  which  we  live  in 
North  America  in  this  Year  of 
Grace  one  thousand  nine  hundred 
and  forty  five. 

By  far  the  largest  type  of  debt 
in  both  Canada  and  the  United 
States  is  bank  debt;  banks  have 
accordingly  been  the  largest  cre- 
ators of  debt.  Only  since  the 
Great  Depression,  and  more  ob- 
viously since  the  commencement 
of  World  War  II,  has  their  per- 
rogative  of  debt  creation  been 
challenged  seriously.  The  chal- 
lengers have  been  the  govern- 
ments of  both  Canada  and  the 
United  States  who,  since  the  de- 
pression years  and  particularly 
since  1939,  have  been  forced  to 
float  enormous  loans  in  an  en- 
deavour to  balance  an  unbalance- 
able  budget.  Although  the  res- 
pective governments  have  floated 
these  huge  loans,  much  of  the 
total  debt  thus  assumed  by  the 
governments  ends  up  in  the 
bankers'  vaults  in  the  form  of 
bonds  held  by  the  banks. 

As  Technocracy  Study  Course 
points  out,  there  are  many  mis- 
apprehensions of  the  mechanism 
of   banking,    ranging      from     the 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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popular  misconception  of  a  bank 
as  merely  a  repository  for  the 
safe-keeping  of  money,  to  the 
conception  of  a  bank  as  an  insti- 
tution that  takes  in  money  from 
depositors,  lends  it  to  other 
people,  and  acquires  its  profits  by 
receiving  a  higher  rate  of  interest 
on  the  money  it  lends  than  it  pays 
on  that  which  it  borrows.  All  of 
this  is  totally  erroneous,  as  H.  D. 
McLeod,  in  his  Theory  of  Bank- 
ing and  Credit,  makes  abundantly 
clear. 

It  will  be  well  for  us  to  instill 
into  our  minds  the  essential 
mechanism  of  banking,  which  is 
as  follows: 

A  banker  is  a  human  being  or 
a  corporation,  with  a  ledger  and  a 
vault  for  the  safe-keeping  of 
money  and  other  debt  certificates 
such  as  bonds,  mortgages,  insur- 
ance policies,  stocks,  and  bank 
notes.  A  depositor  brings  money 
to  the  banker,  which  the  latter 
accepts  and  records  in  his  ledger 
as  a  bank  credit  or  deposit  in  fav- 
or of  the  customer  equal  in  a- 
mount  to  the  money  brought  in 
by  the  customer.  This  credit  or 
deposit  entered  in  the  bankers' 
books  is  a  statement  of  the  debt  of 
the  banker  to  the  customer.  It  is  a 
statement,  in  effect,  that  the 
banker  is  obligated  to  pay  the 
customer  on  demand  or  at  the 
end  of  a  certain  period  of  time, 
an   amount   of  money  up   to   the 


full  amount  of  the  deposit.  Con- 
trary to  the  commonly  accepted 
notion,  a  bank  deposit  does  not 
signify  money,  but  signifies  in- 
stead a  debt  due  by  the  banker  to 
the  customer. 

When  a  banker  accepts  a  prom- 
issory note  from  a  customer  and 
agrees  to  discount  it,  he  really 
buys  the  promise  for  something 
less  than  its  face  value  on  the  as- 
sumption that,  the  risk  being 
good,  he  will  be  able  to  collect 
the  full  amount  due  at  the  date 
stated  on  the  note.  He  would 
not,  however,  pay  money  for  this 
debt.  He  would  instead  enter  up- 
on his  books  a  credit,  or  deposit, 
for  the  amount  he  agreed  to  pay 
his  customer  for  buying  the  note, 
and  no  money  whatsoever  would 
be  involved. 

This  second  deposit  in  no  way 
differs  from  the  first,  for  each  re- 
presents the  legal  right  of  the 
respective  customers  to  demand 
money  from  the  bank  up  to  the 
amounts  deposited.  The  money 
in  the  bank  is  the  banker's  own 
property,  to  do  with  as  he  pleases, 
and  accordingly  in  his  records 
cash  on  hand  represents  always 
a  part  of  his  assets,  while  deposits 
are  among  his  liabilities,  being 
debts  to  others. 

Through  long  experience  bank- 
ers know  that  under  ordinary 
circumstances  very  few  deposit- 
ors  demand   cash    over    a     short 


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MAY,  1945 


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time-period,  and  that  the  amount 
demanded  is  approximately  bal- 
anced by  other  cash  deposits 
Most  transactions  are  usually 
made  by  check,  and  even  when 
these  checks  are  drawn  upon 
other  banks,  the  transfer  of  funds 
from  one  account  to  another  is 
merely  through  the  clearing 
house,  where  checks  from  various 
banks  are  channelled  through  the 
receiving  bank  back  to  the  bank 
upon  which  the  check  was  drawn. 
It  has  been  found  practicable  for 
banks  to  enter  other  credits,  or 
deposits,  upon  their  books  to  the 
extent  of  ten  times  the  amount  of 
their  cash  on  hand,  and  in  'normal 
times'  this  credit  expansion  does 
not  endanger  the  financial  stabil- 
ity of  the  bank. 

Thus,  we  see  that  the  real  busi- 
ness of  banking  is  that  of  the  buy- 
ing and  selling  of  debts.  The 
banker  buys  a  debt  from  his 
customer,  and  out  of  thin  air,  so 
to  speak,  creates  for  this  customer 
a  bank  deposit  which  is  another 
debt,  or  as  McLeod  states  in  his 
Theory  of  Banking    and    Credit: 

'At  the  present  time  credit  is 
the  most  gigantic  species  of  prop- 
erty in  this  country,*  and  the 
trade  in  debts  is  beyond  all  com- 
parison the  most  colossal  branch 
of  commerce.     The     subject     of 


f1f '  hile  this  applies  to  England,  a  similar 
situation  holds  in  both  Canada  and  the 
United  States. 


credit  is  one  of  the  most  extensive 
and  intricate  branches  of  mercan- 
tile law.  The  merchants  who 
trade  in  debts — namely,  the 
bankers — are  now  the  rulers  and 
regulators  of  commerce;  they  al- 
most control  the  fortunes  of 
states.  As  there  are  shops  for 
dealing  in  bread,  in  furniture,  in 
clothes  and  other  species  of  prop- 
erty, so  there  are  shops — some  of 
the  most  palatial  structures  of 
modern  times — for  the  express 
purpose  of  dealing  in  debts;  and 
these  shops  are  called  banks. 

And;  as  there  are  corn  markets 
and  fish  markets,  and  many  other 
sorts  of  markets,  so  there  is  a 
market  for  buying  and  selling 
foreign  debts,  which  is  called  the 
Royal  Exchange.  Thus,  banks 
are  nothing  but  debt  shops,  and 
the  Royal  Exchange  is  the  great 
debt  market  of  Europe.' 

Thus,  when  the  deposits  of  a 
given  bank  are  many  times  great- 
er than  the  cash  on  hand,  that 
bank  is  doing  a  thriving  business, 
and  is  regularly  declaring  good 
dividends,  but  when  the  deposits 
are  equal  to  the  cash  on  hand, 
the  bank  is  doing  no  business  at 
all,  and  has  become  merely  a  re- 
pository for  money  with  a  state 
of  complete  liquidity — a  state  that 
many  of  our  larger  banks  at  the 
present  time  are  approaching. 

Let  us  take  a  look  at  the  1944 
Annual  Reports  of  some  Canadian 


6 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


ro£§ 


banks,  bearing  the  above  notes  in 
mind. 

In  the  case  of  the  Bank  of  Nova 
Scotia,  now  in  its  113th  year,  the 
Bank's  total  of  Quick  Assets  rose 
from  68%  of  its  Total  Liabilities 
to  the  public  in  1942  to  73.5%  in 
1943  and  still  higher  in  1944— to 
75.9%. 

The  Bank's  cash  position  in 
J  944  was  more  liquid  than  in  the 
previous  year  by  $3,786,021, 
standing  at  the  figure  of  $119,- 
853,453.  Banking  practice  would 
urge  that  the  total  deposits  be  in 
the  neighborhood  of  ten  times 
this  amount,  or  around  $1,198,- 
500,000.  In  unhappy  fact,  though, 
the  total  of  the  Bank's  deposits 
only  amounted  to  $461,573,388,  or 
38.5rr  of  the  figure  that  would 
have  been  desirable  from  the 
'good  business'  angle  of  banking. 

Dominion  and  Provincial  Gov- 
ernment bond  holdings  had  risen 
by  some  $94  millions  during  the 
past  two  years  of  the  Bank's  his- 
tory, to  an  all-time  high  of  90.8% 
of  the  Bank's  total  Investment 
Account,  having  risen  from  89% 
at  the  end  of  its  1943  balance 
sheet  year. 

This  is  definitely  not  'good 
banking'  in  the  light  of  banking 
as  it  once  was.  Far  from  it. 
Banks  were  not  intended  by  their 
operators  to  absorb  Government 
bond  issues  rather  than  loan 
money    to    individuals    or    busi- 


ness enterprises.  In  so  doing  they 
reduce  their  interest  income  by  as 
much  as  87%%,  for  under  the 
revised  provisions  of  the  Bank 
Act  the  Canadian  Banks  are  per- 
mitted to  charge  a  maximum  of 
6(/(  interest  on  loans  made  by 
them  to  persons  or  companies, 
whereas  the  interest  return  on 
Government  investment  can  be 
as  low  as  %  of  1%. 

Scanning  the  1944  report  of  the 
Bank  of  Nova  Scotia  we  learn 
that  they  had  included  in  their 
Investment  Account  the  sizeable 
sum  of  $79,390,000  of  Government 
bond  holdings  at  %%  as  against 
a  figure  of  only  $44,335,000  the 
previous  year;  and  that  they  also 
held  $32,500,000  at  1%%.  Figure 
for  yourself  the  interest  income 
loss  on  these  two  items  alone. 

A  hurried  glance  at  the  89th 
Report  of  the  Bank  of  Toronto 
will  disclose  that  its  total  Quick 
Assets  amount  to  82.94%  of  its 
Total  Public  Liabilities,  a  deplor- 
able condition.  The  relation  of 
cash  on  hand  to  deposits  now 
stands  at  the  figure  of  60.9%  of 
allowable  deposit  expansion.  In 
other  words,  the  Bank  has  failed 
to  increase  the  amount  of  its  total 
deposits  to  the  maximum  acknow- 
ledged to  be  safe  by  banking 
authorities  by  39. 1%  .  We  might 
ask  ourselves  why  this  has  not 
been  done,  particularly  when  the 
Bank's   prosperity   is   measurable 


■    ■■ 


MAY,  1945 


only  by  its  credit  expansion. 

Once  again  the  answer  may  be 
found  in  the  lack  of  demand  from 
the  public  for  bank  loans.  The 
only  other  medium  of  investment 
of  the  Bank's  idle  millions  is,  of 
course,  Dominion  and  Provincial 
Government  securities,  which 
rose  $42,863,502  during  the  year 
to  the  huge  amount  of  $176,862,- 
860,  which  it  may  be  recalled  at 
this  point,  represents  more  than 
58%  of  the  Bank's  total  assets! 
At  this  rate  of  banking  'progress,' 
we  may  expect  gentle  overtures 
from  Canadian  Banks  in  the  near 
future  for  the  taking  over  by  the 
Government  of  Canada  of  their 
rapidly  increasing  investment 
headache. 

That  monarch  of  Canadian 
Banking,  the  Bank  of  Montreal, 
provides  much  of  interest  to  the 
Canadian  banking  scene. 

Its  investment  portfolio  rose 
from  some  $517  million  in  1939 
to  more  than  $995  million  in  1944. 
The  published  report  does  not 
show  the  holdings  of  Govern- 
ment bonds  in  1944,  but  in  1943 
the  figure  was  $720,840,429  or 
88.3'/  of  all  bonds  held.  From 
this  figure  it  is  safe  to  assume 
that  more  than  60%  of  the  Bank's 
Total  Liabilities  to  the  Public  is 
held  in  Dominion  and  Provincial 
low-interest-bearing  bonds. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  the  re- 
lation of  its  Quick  Assets  to  Total 


Public  Liability  rose  from  78.29% 
in  1939  to  88.30%  in  1944. 

The  Bank  of  Montreal  held 
Cash  to  the  extent  of  $272,136,001 
as  at  October  31,  1944,  the  end  of 
its  fiscal  year,  while  its  Total  De- 
posits only  amounted  to  $1,420,- 
811,137.  This  bank  has  therefore 
failed  to  loan  to  'enterprising  Ca- 
nadians' 47  %.  of  the  figure  it  could 
have  loaned,  without  endangering 
the  accepted  safety  margin  of 
normal  banking  practice.  That  it 
failed  to  do  so  is  additional  evi- 
dence of  the  lack  of  further  eco- 
nomic expansion  by  'private  ent- 
erprise' within  Canada. 

We  will  leave  the  Canadian 
banking  scene  for  a  while  after 
gleaning  from  the  Annual  Report 
for  1944  of  the  Royal  Bank  of 
Canada.  We  learn  that  this  Bank 
has  a  ratio  of  Quick  Assets  to 
Total  Public  Liabilities  of  81.62%, 
while  its  Government  bond  hold- 
ings amount  to  almost  exactly 
48  c'<  of  its  Total  Public  Liabili- 
ties. 

The  Royal  Bank's  General 
Manager,  commenting  upon  the 
Bank's  increasingly  strong  cash 
position,  pathetically  observed: 
'Every  effort  is  being  made  to  in- 
crease the  total  of  desirable  loan- 
ing business  in  Canada,  but  the 
demand  is  limited.  While  many 
new  loans  are  being  continually 
made,  repayments  offset  such 
new  advances.' 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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The  Royal  Bank  has  in  fact 
only  expanded  its  total  deposits 
to  cover  37.3%  of  the  safe  bank- 
ing figure  of  ten  times  its  total 
cash  on  hand,  and  is  about  the 
most  unhappy  bank  in  the  Domin- 
ion on  this  account. 

At  this  point  we  might  do  well 
to  consider  for  a  few  moments 
a  new  banking  enterprise  which 
has  recently  been  forced  upon  the 
Canadian  banking  ecenomy  by 
the  exigencies  of  the  present  eco- 
nomic situation. 

We  refer,  of  course,  to  the  In- 
dustrial Development  Bank  which 
was  created  during  1944  by  the 
Dominion  Government  in  order 
to  make  credits  available  to  small- 
er industrial  concerns  which  were 
unable  to  expand  when  the  de- 
mand for  their  products  suggested 
such  expansion,  owing  to  lack  of 
capital.  With  taxation  at  its  pre- 
sent high  level,  these,  usually 
small,  companies  were  unable  to 
accumulate  the  necessary  funds 
for  plant  expansion  from  profits. 

It  was  deemed  desirable  by  the 
Dominion  Government  that  as- 
sistance be  provided  for  any 
'enterprising  concerns'  who,  by 
expansion,  would  be  in  a  position 
in  the  postwar  rehabilitation 
period,  to  employ  more  men  than 
in  their  present  state  of  inertia. 

To  this  end  the  Industrial 
Development  Bank  was  set  up, 
from  which  loans  could  be  made 


to  approved  applicants.  The  offi- 
cial notice  in  the  Canada  Gazette 

for  February,  1945,  shows  that 
approximately  one  application  in 
16  had  been  approved,  and  that 
approximately  30  firms  had  re- 
ceived the  blessing  of  the  Bank 
to  expand  their  capacity. 

It  may  appear  unusual  to  the 
untutored  public  that  our  Gov- 
ernment, rather  than  our  present- 
ly constituted  banking  circle, 
should  be  forced  to  finance  small 
business  today.  In  the  past,  when- 
ever a  busnessman  was  in  need 
of  funds,  you  say,  he  could  obtain 
a  loan  from  his  bank.  Quite  so, 
but  only  on  certain  considera- 
tions, ending  at  all  times  with 
practically  no  possibility  of  the 
bank  turning  out  to  have  ad- 
vanced funds  on  a  poor  risk. 
Today,  it  would  seem,  our  banks 
are  somewhat  diffident  to  advance 
credits  upon  the  rather  vague 
'hope'  that  the  firm  in  the  post- 
war will  prosper  and  finally  re- 
pay the  bank.  The  risk  is  too 
heavy  for  assumption  by  the 
banks  of  Canada  today.  The  eco- 
nomic future  doesn't  look  so  good! 

Banks  are  not  interested  pri- 
marily with  increasing,  or  even 
maintaining,  employment,  but  in 
making  profits  upon  their  trans- 
actions. It  does  not  matter  to 
them  whether  a  few  hundred  men 
might  be  employed  if  they  fin- 
ance   certain    plant    expansion — 


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they  must  first  be  assured  that 
the  risk  is  a  good  one.  That  the 
risk  is  greater  than  they  wish  to 
assume  is  obvious  from  the  Gov- 
ernment's institution  of  the  In- 
dustrial Development  Bank. 

Yet  strange  to  relate,  the 
bankers  themselves  are  now  a 
little  troubled  at  heart  when  they 
consider  that  this  newly  created 
Bank  may  prove  to  be  still  more 
competition  for  them.  The  Gen- 
eral Manager  of  the  Bank  of  Nova 
Scotia,  commenting  upon  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Industrial 
Development  Bank  as  a  subsidi- 
ary of  the  Bank  of  Canada,  stated: 
'Here,  too,  the  intention  is  to 
complement  the  existing  financial 
machinery  by  providing  a  source 
of  capital  for  industral  enter- 
prises, and  particularly  small 
businesses,  whose  reasonable 
needs  are  such  as  cannot  be  fully 
met  either  through  ordinary  bank 
loans  or  through  financing  in  the 
long-term  market.' 

This  quotation  clearly  shows 
that  the  Banks  are  already  sug- 
gesting to  the  Dominion  Govern- 
ment that  the  Bank  of  Canada's 
subsidiary  shall  not  trespass  up- 
on current  banking  grazing 
grounds. 

Banking  is  no  longer  what  it 
used  to  be! 

The  pressure  of  over-produc- 
tion, even  in  spite  of  a  World 
War,  is  showing  up  in  the  furrow- 


ed brows  and  greying  hair  of 
North  America's  bankers.  Banks 
have  more  money  than  they  know 
what  to  do  with! 

In  1940,  the  Federal  Reserve 
member  banks  in  the  United 
States  of  America  had  $33  billion 
in  demand  deposits  upon  their 
books.  Of  their  total  loans  to 
customers,  $7  billion  were  in  pri- 
vate business,  while  only  $12  bil- 
lion were  invested  in  U.  S.  Gov- 
ernment bonds. 

In  four  years  the  picture  was 
grim.  On  September  2,  1944,  de- 
mand deposits  in  those  same- 
banks  had  risen  to  $35  billion. 
Private  loans  were  down  to  $6 
billion,  and  the  banks  had  more 
than  tripled  their  holdings  of  Uni- 
ted States  Government  bonds, 
having  on  their  books  $41%  bil- 
lion upon  which  the  interest  rate 
was  lower  than  2%. 

In  Canada  we  will  use  the  fig- 
ures supplied  in  December  of 
1944  by  the  Royal  Bank  of  Cana- 
da in  connection  with  the  increas- 
ing of  net  debt. 

Says  the  Royal  Bank:  'Canada's 
net  debt  today  is  nearly  three 
times  the  prewar  figure.  In  1913 
the  net  debt  per  capita  was  $41; 
in  1919,  $189;  in  1939,  $279;  and 
in  March  this  year  (1944),  $774. 
Annual  interest  charge  on  the 
funded  debt  at  the  end  of  the  last 
fiscal  year  was  $274  million,  or  an 
average  rate  of  2.57  %,  compared 


10 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


with   3.52%    in    1939   and   5%    in 
1919. 

Apart  from  the  enormous  rise 
in  the  per  capita  net  debt  as 
shown,  an  equally  important 
point  for  bankers  to  ponder  is  the 
lowering  of  the  interest  rate  to  an 
average  of  about  half  that  of  1919. 
Technocracy  has  stated  that  the 
irreversible  trend  in  the  interest 
rate  in  North  America  is  steadily 
downward.  If  nobody  else  on  the 
Continent  realizes  the  truth  of 
this  analysis,  you  can  bet  your 
boots  the  Bankers  do! 

The  increasing  liquidity  of  the 
banks,  of  course,  is  due  in  part  to 
the  very  high  level  of  the  national 
income.  Canada's  national  in- 
come during  1944  was  almost 
double  the  figure  for  1920,  when 
national  income  had  reached  what 
was  then  an  all-time  high  of 
$4,600  million.  In  1921  it  declin- 
ed 24  percent  when  a  de- 
pression hit,  and  after  recovering 
steadily  year  by  year,  it  reached 
a  new  high  in  1929,  the  total  na- 
tional income  then  registering 
$5,273  million.  The  'dirty  thirties' 
depression  low  was  a  mere  52^ 
of  1929's  high  point,  and  was 
reached  in  1933.  Income  rose 
steadily  during  1934  to  1937  in- 
clusive, and,  as  the  Royal  Bank 
of  Canada  puts  it,  received  a 
'temporary  setback  to  recovery' 
in  1938.  The  rate  of  rise  from 
1939  onwards  has  increased,  until 


for  the  12  months  ending  Septem- 
ber, 1944,  the  national  income 
registered  practically  $9  billion. 

Realize  what  would  happen  to 
the  Canadian  economy  should 
this  national  income  figure  drop 
after  this  war  to  the  1933  depres- 
sion low — and  such  a  prospect  is 
probable.  Remember  that  our 
Canadian  production  is  now  three 
times  what  it  was  before  the  war, 
and  that  our  national  per  capita 
debt  is  almost  three  times  as  high 
as  1939,  and  four  times  that  of 
1919.  If  our  production  is  cut, 
and  national  income  consequently 
reduced,  it  will  not  affect  our  per 
capita  debt  one  iota,  as  far  as  a 
reduction  in  it  is  concerned.  The 
national  debt  will  merely  rise  to 
still  greater  heights. 

The  Governments  of  both  Ca- 
nada and  the  United  States  have 
enlisted  the  cooperation  of  the 
banks  in  both  countries  during 
this  war  period  to  assist  in  draw- 
ing off  surplus  purchasing  power 
by  means  of  periodic  and  highly 
glamourized  appeals  to  the  public 
to  'Invest  in  Victory'  and  buy 
Bonds.  Much  strenuous  and, 
doubtless,  patriotic  work  has 
gone  into  preparation  of  the  vari- 
ous territories  preceding  every 
drive,  and  the  public  has  been 
showered  with  wondrous  success 
stories  by  cities,  towns  and  com- 
munities 'going  over  the  top'  in 
their  subscription  quotas. 


MAY,  1945 


11 


Whether  or  not  we  are  doing 
our  share  by  'investing  in  victory' 
at  3%,  while  sons  and  husbands 
are  dying  for  a  serviceman's  pay, 
is  not  under  discussion  here. 
What  we  are  interested  in,  how- 
ever, is  whether  we  have  been 
correctly  informed  when  the 
Bond  drive  results  have  been 
published. 

The  reason  for  holding  them  is 
obvious — excess  purchasing  pow- 
er must  be  syphoned  off  to  prevent 
inflation,  and  to  produce  a  back- 
log of  purchasing  power  for  the 
reconversion  period  after  the 
war  when  the  people  of  North 
America  will  have  time  to  con- 
sider returning  to  'business  as 
usual.'  At  that  time,  it  is  hoped, 
accumulated  savings  will  cushion 
the  jolt  when  war-expanded  pro- 
duction is  cut  down.  Nobody  in 
high  places  dares  to  suggest  a 
cutting  down  of  our  present  pro- 
ductivity to  the  one-third  it  total- 
led before  1939  (nor  do  they  sug- 
gest how  this  calamity  can  be 
avoided),  but  we  will  not  press 
that  point  here  either. 

We  will  consider  the  results  of 
the  various  Bond  drives  held  in 
the  United  States  of  America, 
that  land  of  the  free  and  home 
of  the  brave,  where,  as  in  Canada, 
unless  purchasing  power  is  sy- 
phoned off,  disaster  looms  ahead. 
We  are  able  to  obtain  more  accur- 
ate detailed  figures    from    below 


the  49th  than  are  readily  obtain- 
able in  Canada,  but  the  results 
on  both  sides  of  the  border  paral- 
lel each  other. 

The  National  City  Bank  of  New 
York  (which  we  shall  hereafter 
refer  to  as  the  N.C.B.)  surveyed 
the  last  six  Bond  drives  under- 
taken in  the  United  States  with 
a  view  to  ascertaining  just  how 
much  they  accounted  for  public 
withdrawal  of  available  money, 
and  the  picture,  to  say  the  least, 
is  both  disturbing  and  astounding. 

The  Sixth  War  Loan  of  the 
United  States  was  scheduled  to 
withdraw  at  least  the  quota  of 
$14  billion  set,  and  this  overall 
quota  was  subscribed  and  passed 
by  the  middle  of  the  drive,  while 
the  total  sales  of  this  issue  passed 
$21  billion  and  exceeded  those  of 
any  previous  drive. 

The  interest  rate  offered  on 
these  bonds  and  certificates  is 
worth  remembering.  The  1966- 
71  bonds  were  offered,  as  were  all 
series  in  this  issue,  at  par,  and  the 
interest  was  2%%.  The  1952-54 
bonds  carried  2%  interest;  the 
1947  notes  were  issued  to  earn 
\y±r/(\  while  the  certificates  (also 
short  term  issues)  carried  %% 
interest.  Total  U.S.  public  debt 
was  carried  by  this  financing  to 
a  new  high  of  about  $232  billion, 
which  may  be  compared  with  the 
figure  of  $170  billion  one  year 
ago,   $61   billion  at  the    time    of 


12 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


H 


mm 
BKS9    B£ 

•  ■ 

■  I  V  ■  I 


Pearl  Harbor,  and  the  interwar 
low  of  $16  billion  at  the  end  of 
1930. 

The  N.  C.  B.  observed  that  the 
large  oversubscription  recorded 
in  the  drive  is  all  the  more  note- 
worthy in  view  of  the  fact  that 
this  marked  the  sixth  of  a  series 
of  war  loans,  coming  along  at  in- 
tervals of  five  months  or  less, 
that  have  raised  an  aggregate  of 
nearly  $100  billion  in  a  period  of 
approximately  two  years,  while 
it  was  the  third  loan  in  the  cal- 
endar year  1944. 

However,  as  the  N.  C.  B.  con- 
tinues, the  real  test  of  the  success 
of  the  drives  is  not  merely  in  the 
total  amount  of  money  raised  but 
in  how  many  individuals  sub- 
scribed, and  in  how  much  infla- 
tionary money  was  absorbed.  For 
such  an  analysis  the  figures  need 
to  be  broken  down  to  determine 
what  proportion  of  the  securities 
sold  was  financed  by  an  expan- 
sion of  bank  credit,  with  its  in- 
flationary effect  of  adding  to  the 
sum-total  of  purchasing  power 
available.  This  rank  acknow- 
ledgement by  one  of  the  powerful 
New  York  banks  is  of  interest, 
and  should  help  in  clarifying  the 
muddle-headed  thinking  so  pre- 
valent among  North  Americans 
that  'there  is  money  behind  every 
issue  of  bonds  or  stock.'  As  the 
N.  C.  B.  makes  perfectly  clear, 
nothing  is  farther  from  the  truth. 


Instead,  purchasing  power,  or 
money,  can  be  created  out  of  thin 
air;  money  is,  of  a  surety,  'no- 
thing,' and  there  is  no  limit  to  the 
expansion  of  its  creation,  while 
the  people  of  this  Continent  have 
confidence  that  it  will  one  day  be 
'worth  something.' 

A  summary  was  prepared  by 
the  N.  C.  B.  and  is  reproduced 
here,  giving  the  estimated  in- 
crease in  commercial  holdings  of 
government  securities  and  in 
loans  against  securities,  also  Fed- 
eral Reserve  Bank  holdings  of 
government  securities,  compared 
with  the  net  increase  in  public 
debt  during  the  six  war  loan 
drives. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  table 
that  during  the  last  War  Loan, 
from  November  1  to  the  end  of 
December,  there  was  a  net  in- 
crease of  about  $6.9  billion  in  the 
estimated  total  government  secur- 
ity holdings  of  all  commercial 
banks,  based  on  the  changes  of 
the  weekly  reporting  member 
banks.  This  increase  took  place 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the 
banks  were  not  permitted  to  sub- 
scribe directly  during  the  drive, 
with  the  exception  of  limited  in- 
vestment of  their  time  deposits 
and  represented  largely  the  pur- 
chase by  the  banks  of  old  issues 
of  government  securities  liquid- 
ated by  other  investors  desiring 
to  subscribe  to  the  new  issues. 


■    ■ 


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■  * 


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MAY,  1945 


13 


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Era?? 


In  simpler  language  this  buying 
up  of  old  issues  by  the  banks  al- 
lowed subscribers  to  previous 
Bond  drives  to  use  their  invested 
capital  over  again  to  buy  the  new 
issues.  If  this  were  done  by  one 
investor  in  each  of  the  six  drives. 


Bonds,  which  was  correct,  but 
with  one  important  reservation. 
He  had  not  been  persuaded  to 
part  with  $6,000  of  what  the  N.  C 
B.  calls  inflationary  money,  but 
instead,  had  only  used  his  original 
$1,000. 


Net  Increase  in  Outstanding  National  Debt  in  the  United  States,  Commercial  Bank 
Holdings  of  Government  Securities  and  Loans  on  Securities,  and  Federal  Reserve 
Bank  Holdings  of  Government  Securities,  during  Six  War  Loan  Drives. 

(In   Millions   of   Dollars) 


Increase  in 


1st  2nd 

Loan  Loan 

1942  1943 


3rd 
Loan 
1943 


4th 
Loan 
1944 


5th  6th 

Loan  Loan 

1944  1944 


Gross    National     Debt    

11.889 

20.120 

21,046 

17.204 

22.207 

20,300' 

All    Commercial    Banks 

Government    Securities    _. 

4,640 

8.680 

6.700 

5,060 

8.800 

6.940 

Loans    on    Securities    

500 

650 

1,510 

1,090 

1.700 

1,750 

TOTAL,    

5.140 

9.330 

8,210 

6,150 

10,500 

8,690 

43^. 
1.146 

46% 
262 

39% 
104 

36% 
9 

17% 

551 

43  °i 

Federal   Reserve   Banks 

Government    Securities    

1,459 

Total — Commercial   banks   plus 
Federal    Reserve   

6,286 

9.592 

8,314 

6,159 

11.051 

10.149 

53% 

48% 

40% 

36% 

50% 

50% 

*The  net  increase  in  public  debt  differs  from  reported  War  Loan  sales  because  of  a 
number  of  factors,  including  deferred  payment  sales,  redemption  of  savings,  bonds, 
tax  notes,  and  other  securities,  the  issuance  of  special  securities  to  government 
trust  funds,  and  exclusion  from  drive  quotas  of  Treasury  bills,  sales  to  government 
agencies,  and  limited  sales  of  long-term  bonds  to  commercial  hanks  for  investment 
»f   time   deposits. 


he  would  have  'bought'  say  $1,000 
in  each  of  the  six  drives,  but  the 
banks  had  in  the  meantime  re- 
bought  the  first  five  issues  from 
him,  and  he  still  had  only  $1,000 
invested  in  the  last  issue.  The 
government  had  in  the  meantime 
reported  that  during  the  six 
drives   he   had   bought   $6,000   of 


The  purpose  of  the  Bond  drives 
therefore  was  not  fulfilled  in  his 
case.  No  additional  money  was 
removed  from  circulation,  but  the 
bank  had  assumed  title  to  $5,000 
worth  of  Bonds. 

Another  method  frequently 
used  by  investors  was  to  request 
their  bank  to  make  them  a  loan 


14 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


I 


HK 


H 

mbI  1 1  ' 


on  the  securities  already  held  by 
them.  The  bank  would  do  so, 
and  create  in  their  account  a  de- 
posit for  the  agreed  amount.  No 
actual  money  would  be  involved, 
but  the  investor,  on  the  strength 
of  the  securities  he  already  own- 
ed and  had  deposited  with  his 
bank,  would  then  be  in  a  position 
to  purchase  a  certain  amount  of 
the  current  issue.  The  bank  cre- 
ation of  credit  in  this  manner 
amounted  to  $1.8  billion  and  as 
the  N.  C.  B.  points  out,  practically 
all  of  this  increase  occurred  in 
the  loans  made  against  govern- 
ment securities,  for  the  purpose 
of  assisting  brokers,  dealers  and 
others  in  their  purchase  of  the 
new  issue. 

The  estimated  increase  of  $8.7 
billion  in  these  investments  and 
loans  combined  was  about  43% 
of  the  estimated  net  increase  of 
$20.3  billion  in  public  debt  during 
the  same  period.  Including  the 
Federal  Reserve  purchases  of 
government  securities,  the  total 
bank  credit  involved  in  purchase 
of  or  loans  on  government  securi- 
ties was  over  $10  billion  or  ap- 
proximately half  of  the  estimated 
debt  increase  during  the  last 
drive.  This  compares  with  pre- 
vious drives  as  shown  in  the 
table. 

The  N.  C.  B.  observes  that 
while  some  readjustment  of  in- 
vestor portfolios  is  legitimate  and 

iMAY,   1945 


cannot  well  be  criticized,  a  large 
turnover  induced  by  competitive 
bidding  for  outstanding  govern- 
ment issues  by  banks  in  order  to 
obtain  sales  credits  or  war  loan 
deposits  resulting  from  switching 
customers  into  the  new  issues  has 
the  effect  of  padding  the  figures 
and  lends  a  false  air  of  success  to 
the  drive. 

The  N.  C.  B.  takes  some  heart 
in  noting  that  the  percentage  of 
total  government  debt  increase 
during  1942,  1943  and  1944,  taken 
by  banks,  has  steadily  declined, 
but  states  that  whereas  this  per- 
centage has  dropped  from  49  '"< 
in  1942  to  37%  in  1944,  when  the 
banks  took  some  $22,676  million, 
the  percentage  is  still  far  too 
high. 

At  the  end  of  1944  the  banks  of 
the  United  States  held  about  $94 
billion  of  the  estimated  govern- 
ment debt  of  $232  billion. 

As  the  National  City  Bank  of 
New  York  comments:  'While  the 
declining  annual  percentage  of 
debt  taken  by  the  banks  is  en- 
couraging, the  proportion  of  bank 
credit  involved  in  a  war  financing 
program  that  is  aimed  at  raising 
funds  outside  of  the  banking  sys- 
tem is  still  much  too  large.  It  is 
easy  enough  to  float  large  quan- 
tities of  securities  that  can  be 
paid  for  directly  or  indirectly  by 
expansion  of  bank  credit.  The 
real  job  is  in  selling  securities  to 


15 


MA 


■I 


■i 

■np 


!W2KS» 


HI 


individuals  and  other  investors 
who  will  pay  for  them  out  of 
money  that  is  saved.  The  last 
drive  hardly  made  a  dent  in  the 
volume  of  money  in  circulation, 
now  swollen  to  over  $25  billion. 
Retail  trade  last  month  (Decem- 
ber 1944)  was  still  at  peak  levels, 
and  there  was  continued  evidence 
of  free  and  extravagant  spending 
for  luxury  goods,  amusements 
and  travel.' 

An  exact  duplicate,  on  a  minia- 
ture scale,  can  be  observed  with- 
in the  Canadian  banking  struc- 
ture. The  enormous  rise  in  their 
holdings  of  Dominion  govern- 
ment securities  has  already  been 
noted. 

Since  Canadian  economic  trends 
parallel  closely  those  of  the  U.S., 
it  is  probable  that  an  analysis  of 
the  Victory  Bond  Drives  held  in 
Canada  would  reveal  that,  of 
every  $100  listed  as  being  sub- 
scribed by  the  public  in  the  drives, 
about  $50  was  in  fact  merely 
an  expansion  of  Bank  Credit 
within  the  Canadian  banking 
structure,  and  only  half  of  the 
final  loan  drive  totals  would  re- 
present a  withdrawal  from  circu- 
lation of  potential  'inflationary 
currency.' 

We  have  also  noted  that  inter- 
est rates  are  similar  to  those  men- 
tioned for  the  Sixth  U.S.  War 
Loan  Drive,  dropping  to  3A  of  1%. 
Canadian  investors  are  doing  pre- 


cisely the  same  as  their  U.  S. 
cousins — selling  last  issue  Bonds 
to  pay  for  the  current  issue,  and 
the  banks  are  taking  over  the 
certificates. 

This  is  not  banking  as  we  were 
once  taught  that  banking  was 
supposed  to  be.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  banking,  as  it  was,  will 
ever  return,  for  with  the  urgency 
of  reconversion  problems,  the 
Governments  of  both  Canada  and 
United  States  will  be  forced  to 
float  huge  issues  of  bonds  in  order 
to  continue  the  method  of  Price 
System  bamboozling  to  which  we 
have  become  accustomed  during 
the  past  seven  thousand  years: 
'As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is 
now,  and,  (so  Big  Business  and 
Politicians  fervently  pray)  ever 
shall  be ' 

The  tendency  of  our  financial 
institutions  toward  increasing 
liquidity  and  a  lowering  interest 
rate  is  a  trend  that  has  been  noted 
specifically  by  Technocracy  over 
the  last  25  years.  Technocracy 
has  charted  the  growth  of  debt 
in  relationship  with  physical  pro- 
duction and  demonstrated  that, 
whereas  physical  production  is 
limited  by  the  laws  of  growth  that 
obtain  in  all  material  quantities, 
debt  (not  being  a  material  quan- 
tity) can,  and  does,  soar  into  the 
stratosphere.  Technocracy  has  al- 
so shown  that  the  ever  widening 
rift   between  the   growth   curves 


16 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


I 


,35jLV  '  H  I      *3c8 

■■■J  __.<♦}  ■■ 

H 


of  debt  and  production  is  tearing 

ter  its  houses  of  banking.    As  our 

the  Price  System  apart. 

bankers  chase  elusive  bats  around 

The  people   of  North  America 

their    palatial    belfries,    Technoc- 

will   shortly    witness     a     debacle 

racy   is  preparing   North  Ameri- 

which   will    shake    the    economic 

cans  for  the  coming  crisis. 

pillars  of  this  Continent  and  shat- 

— Horace  W.  Carpenter 

Will  Rogers  on 

Total  Conscription 

OUR  Public  Men  are  speaking  every  day  on  something  but  they 
ain't  saying  nothing.  But  when  Mr.  Harding  said  that,  in  case  of 
another  war  that  capital  would  be  drafted  the  same  as  men,  he  put 
over  a  thought  that,  if  carried  out,  would  do  more  to  stop  wars  than 
all  the  International  Courts  and  Leagues  of  Nations  in  the  World. 

Of  the  three  things  to  prevent  wars,  League  of  Nations,  Inter- 
national Court,  and  this  Drafting  of  Capital,  this  last  one  is  so  far  ahead 
of  the  others  there  is  no  comparison.  When  the  Wall  Street  Million- 
aire knows  that  you  are  not  only  going  to  come  into  his  office  and  take 
his  Secretary  and  Clerks  but  that  you  come  in  to  get  his  Dough,  say 
Boy  there  wouldn't  be  any  war.  You  will  hear  the  question:  'Yes, 
but  how  could  you  do  it?' 

Say,  you  take  a  Boy's  life,  don't  you?  When  you  take  Boys  away 
you  take  everything  they  have  in  the  World,  that  is,  their  life.  You 
send  them  to  war  and  part  of  that  life  you  don't  use  you  let  him  come 
back  with  it.  Well,  that's  the  way  to  do  with  wealth.  Take  all  he  has, 
give  him  a  bare  living  the  same  as  you  do  the  Soldier.  Give  him  the 
same  allowance  as  the  Soldier — all  of  us  that  stay  home. 

There  can  be  no  profiteering.  The  Government  owns  everything 
till  the  war  is  over.  Every  Man,  Woman  and  Child,  from  Henry  Ford 
and  John  D.  down,  get  their  Dollar  and  a  Quarter  a  day  the  same  as 
the  Soldier.  The  only  way  a  man  could  profiteer  in  a  war  like  that 
would  be  to  raise  more  Children. 

If  a  man  went  before  the  People  on  a  platform  of  that  kind  and 
put  it  over,  he  could  remain  President  till  his  Whiskers  got  so  long 
he  could  make  a  fortune  just  picking  the  lost  Golf  Balls  out  of  them. 
But,  no,  it  will  never  get  anywhere.  The  rich  will  say  it  ain't  practical, 
and  the  poor  will  never  get  a  chance  to  find  out  if  it  is  or  not. 

—Will  Rogers  in  The  Illiterate  Digest  (1924) 

MAY.  1945  1- 


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Our  Technological  Revolution 


This  Continent  faces  inevitable  social  change.  It  is  time  that  more 
of  us  were  working  for  that  change  instead  of  against  it.  It  will  be 
the  greatest   revolutionary  advancement   of  all  time. 


A  giant  of  the  skies  lifts  into 
the  air.  Swiftly  it  wings  its 
way  eastward,  over  the  Rockies, 
above  the  Dakotas.  Soon  Ole 
Man  Mississippi  is  rolling  along 
far  below.  Six  hours,  three  min- 
utes, fifty  seconds  from  the  time 
it  left  Seattle,  this  new  great 
stratoliner  covered  a  distance  of 
2,323  miles  to  arrive  in  Washing- 
ton, D.C.  That  is  the  flight  record 
of  the  new  Boeing  C-97.  A  new 
coast-to-coast  non-stop  record 
that  carried  its  passengers  in 
warmth  and  comfort  through 
high  altitudes  and  a  temperature 
of  45  degrees  below  outside  the 
plane.  Was  it  only  42  years  ago 
that  aviation  was  born  at  Kitty 
Hawk?  Aviation  has  come  a  long 
way  in  a  phenomenally  short 
while.  .  .  . 

Glass.  A  substance  known  to 
man  for  thousands  of  years.  Al- 
ways so  brittle  and  easily  broken 
that  its  uses  were  curtailed.  To- 
day in  the  workshops  and  labor- 
atories of  Corning,  Owens,  Dow, 
and  others,  there  is  glass  that  can 
be  sawed  and  nailed  like  lumber. 
There  is  glass  that  is  one  third 
lighter  than   cork   and  far  more 


buoyant.  There  is  glass  that 
bounces  like  the  proverbial  rub- 
ber ball.  There  is  other  glass  that 
can  be  bent,  twisted,  or  woven 
into  cloth.  Military  requirements 
have  brought  the  development  of 
glass  that  will  stop  armor  pierc- 
ing bullets  up  to  .50  calibre.  Upon 
breakage,  another  type  of  glass 
will  not  cut  anything  that  it 
comes  in  contact  with.  In  their 
day  the  ancient  Phoenicians  had 
a  bargaining  commodity  in  their 
crude  glass.  A  new  day  in  the  de- 
velopment and  use  of  glass  has 
come  to  North  America,  another 
fraction  of  the  greatness  that  our 
physical  progress  has  achiev- 
ed. ..  . 

Tantalum.  Popular  conception 
holds  it  just  another  queer  text- 
book word.  To  some  of  our 
wounded  fighting  men  on  fronts 
around  the  world  it  is  miracu- 
lously real.  This  rare  metal  had 
never  been  produced  in  quantity 
until  the  exigencies  of  war  in- 
creased the  demands  for  per- 
formance of  North  America's 
chemistry.  It  is  replacing  shatter- 
ed bones,  and  has  become  a  sur- 
gical sensation  because  it  is  so- 


ls 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■■■Hflfl     «£r 
■■      189         BIS 


inert  that  flesh  will  grow  on  it. 
The  genius  of  science  has  brought 
another  great  achievement.  .  .  . 

Oil.  Advancement  of  the  pet- 
roleum industry  typifies  the  pro- 
gress that  all  physical  develop- 
ment in  North  America  has  made. 
It  is  a  forward  march  that  defies 
historical  comparison.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  since  1939  the  petro- 
leum industry  has  encompassed 
developments  that  would  norm- 
ally take  until  1965  to  reach.  But 
total  war  demands  that  one 
bomber  plane  consume  about  200 
gallons  of  gasoline  for  each  flying 
hour.  United  States  military  and 
naval  requirements  exceed  25 
million  gallons  of  gasoline  per  day 
while  needs  for  crude  oil  exceed 
40  million  gallons  every  day.  A- 
bundant  resources,  super  equip- 
ment, and  skilled  personnel  co- 
ordinate to  do  the  job. 

Prior  to  war  40%  of  the  oil  that 
was  consumed  in  United  States 
was  shipped  via  tankers  from 
ports  along  the  coastline  of  Texas 
and  Louisiana.  Submarines  so  im- 
perilled this  route  that  it  became 
necessary  to  maintain  the  flow  of 
oil  overland.  Thousands  of  tank 
cars  were  pressed  into  use.  The 
Big  Inch  pipeline,  which  is  1254 
miles  long,  daily  delivers  to  its 
eastern  termini  in  New  York  and 
Philadelphia,  300,000  barrels  of 
oil.  It  is  only  one  of  several  pipe- 
lines that  supply  the  Atlantic  sea- 


board with  around  750,000  bar- 
rels of  oil  daily.  As  much  oil  now 
reaches  this  vital  war  production 
area  overland  as  was  formerly 
transported  by  tankers.  .  .  . 

The  chemical  industry  has  al- 
ways relied  upon  coal  as  the  ma- 
jor basis  of  chemical  products.  It 
still  is,  but  coal  has  been  enor- 
mously supplemented  by  petro- 
leum, wood,  air,  salt,  and  natural 
gas.  When  war  was  declared  be- 
tween United  States  and  Ger- 
many in  1917,  the  shortage  of 
dyes  became  acute,  for  dyes  were 
a  German  monopoly.  Women 
mobbed  the  largest  department 
stores  of  New  York  and  other 
cities  to  obtain  the  last  of  the 
coloured  materials.  Today  North 
America  is  self-sufficient  in 
dyes.  .  .  . 

Similarly  in  the  last  war  North 
America  was  utterly  dependent 
upon  the  importation  of  salt- 
petre from  Chile  for  nitrogen, 
from  which  nitric  acid,  essential  to 
explosives  manufacture,  is  made. 
Once  more  the  extension  of  chem- 
istry to  new  horizons  has  made 
us  independent.  Heavy  chemical 
plants  are  extracting  nitrogen 
from  the  atmosphere  with  new 
equipment  which  applies  pres- 
sures up  to  15,000  pounds  per 
square  inch.  .  .  . 

Chemistry  is  changing  basic 
source  materials  into  all-purpose 
soap,  for  hot  or  cold,  salt  or  fresh 


MAY.  1945 


19 


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water,  and  suitable  for  launder- 
ing clothes,  bathing,  or  shav- 
ing. .  .  . 

When  North  Americans  went 
into  the  tropical  areas  they  found 
a  new  and  magnificent  kind  of 
hell,  green,  dank,  and  steaming; 
literally  writhing  with  bacteria, 
crawling  with  animal  life,  stink- 
ing from  pollution,  rapid  decay 
and  growth.  Usually  it  is  impos- 
sible to  take  time  to  clear  ma- 
laria-infested areas  in  which  they 
must  operate.  It  is  impossible  to 
remain  under  network  at  all 
times.  Chemistry  has  provided 
disinfectants  that  kill  all  craw- 
ling body  vermin.  Tablets  that 
purify  water.  Insect  repellants 
that  keep  mosquitos  and  other 
biting  and  stinging  insects  at  a 
safe  distance.  Without  these  aids 
the  Allied  campaign  in  the  jun- 
gles of  the  Orient  would  be  much 
more  difficult.  .  .  . 

It  was  a  lowly  form  of  machine 
tool  that  Joseph  Whitworth  in- 
vented in  the  early  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  designed  to 
improve  the  spinning  and  weav- 
ing industries.  Prior  to  this  in- 
vention, however,  machinery  was 
made  crudely  by  hand  with  chis- 
els, files,  hammers,  and  other 
primitive  hand  tools.  Threads 
could  not  be  cut  evenly.  Today 
our  steel  industry  finds  that  pul- 
ling cold  steel  bars  through  dia- 
mond cut     dies     to     within     ten- 


20 


thousandths  of  an  inch  of  desired 
size  gives  them  hard  shining  sur- 
faces and  makes  them  extremely 
accurate  in  measurement  and 
straightness.  .  .  . 

Canada  has  completed  the  gi- 
gantic Shipshaw  project — that 
marvel  of  hydroelectric  develop- 
ment in  the  wilderness  of  Quebec. 
Just  another  sample  of  what  en- 
gineering and  technology  can  do 
when  given  the  opportunity.  .  .  . 

While  World  War  II  has  pro- 
duced the  greatest  increase  in 
technological  progress  the  world 
has  ever  experienced,  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  this  progress  has 
occurred  in  North  America.  All 
over  the  Continent  billions  of 
dollars  have  been  spent  upon  the 
creation  and  development  of  a 
colossus  of  productive  technol- 
ogy. Based  in  this  technology  and 
productive  ability  is  a  potent  soc- 
ial force. 

Total  war  around  the  world  has 
not  been  big  enough  to  maintain 
wide  open  production  and  con- 
tinued expansion  in  basic  mater- 
ials. With  the  war  not  over,  the 
problem  of  surpluses  and  unem- 
ployment are  already  real.  Be- 
cause modern  technology  in  com- 
bination with  extraneous  energy 
is  so  productive  with  an  increas- 
ing minimum  of  manpower,  we 
shall  find  in  the  postwar  that  mil- 
lions of  war  workers,  government 
employees,     and     armed     service 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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personnel  will  not  be  required  to 
produce  the  abundance  that  must 
be  distributed  before  freedom 
from  want  and  freedom  from  fear 
can  ever  exist  in  fact. 

Never  has  any  civilization's  op- 
portunity for  security  and  pro- 
gress been  so  great  as  is  ours 
now.  With  our  tremendous  ad- 
vancement in  scientific  research 
merely  at  the  threshold  of  still 
greater  wonders,  the  achievement 
of  a  social  destiny  will  demand 
at  war's  termination  that  this 
Continent  unite  and  operate.  One1 
mighty  dynamo  with  a  pulsation 
of  goods  and  services  so  great 
that  no  citizen  of  this  Continent 
will  be  left  in  need. 

In  conjunction  with  our  mighty 
array  of  technology  we  remain  a 
strange  conglomerate  society.  It 
is  like  Topsy;  it  just  'growed'. 
Mixed  with  scientific  and  engin- 
eering techniques  of  measurable 
operation,  that  could  create  from 
our  bountiful  resources  an  en- 
vironment assuring  economic 
security  for  every  citizen  from 
birth  to  death,  we  find  instead  the 
superimposition  of  controls  that 
maintain  many  of  the  elements  of 
medieval  barbarism. 

The  major  part  of  our  popula- 
tion remains  in  meagre  circum- 
stances, and  a  poor  standard  of 
health  is  predominant  through- 
out. The  palliative  of  charity  in 
various  forms    is    distributed    to 


those  in  direst  circumstances,  and 
this  magnanimous  gesture  is  en- 
thusiastically endorsed  through 
all  the  main  propaganda  channels. 
We  maintain  a  minority  of  suc- 
cessful nice  people,  and  these 
accept  it  as  a  social  obligation  to 
assist  in  a  small  way  the  majority 
who  have  had  bad  luck,  have  not 
the  right  connections,  or  have 
been  lacking  in  sufficient  pecuni- 
ary initiative  and  opportunism. 

This  medieval  custom  has  al- 
ways been  popular  and  generous 
contributors  to  charity  always  en- 
joy an  enhanced  prestige  in  their 
community  because  of  their  con- 
scientious humanitarianism.  The 
peculiarity  of  our  social  mentality 
is  exemplified  in  the  fact  that 
everyone  deplores  the  need  for 
charity,  but  simultaneously  shuns 
the  fact  that  a  closer  orientation 
of  ourselves  with  our  environment 
would  eliminate  charity  in  its  en- 
tirety. 

There  is  a  vast  quantity  of  sub- 
jective thought  afoot  in  our  soc- 
iety. The  predication  of  our  con- 
ditioning and  social  operations 
upon  ideals,  hopes,  wishes,  or 
plans  that  ignore  the  dominant 
factor  of  technology  in  our  social 
operations,  threaten  to  bring  us  to 
the  brink  of  even  a  greater  dis- 
aster than  the  economic  debacle 
of  1929. 

Our  educational  institutions 
are   one  of  the  prime  factors   in 


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contributing  to  our  current  and 
increasing  Continental  confusion. 
Dr.  Norman  MacKenzie,  Presi- 
dent of  the  University  of  British 
Columbia,  was  recently  reported 
in  the  press  as  expressing  the 
following  opinion: 

'Popularity  of  courses  in  ap- 
plied science  threatens  to  turn 
the  average  Canadian  university 
into  a  collection  of  laboratories, 
drafting  rooms,  and  similar  incu- 
bators of  mass  production.  The 
most  important  problem  today  is 
how  to  encourage  the  pursuit  of 
a  liberal  education.  Demands  of 
war  and  industrial  civilization 
has  stimulated  the  growing  popu- 
larity of  courses  in  science.  The 
study  of  languages,  literature, 
history — in  short,  a  liberal  edu- 
cation— is  just  as  necessary  to 
Canada's  future  social  structure 
as  the  mastery  of  applied  sciences 
is  to  industrial  development.' 

The  demands  of  this  war  have 
been  demands  for  survival.  North 
America  has  never  faced  such  an 
array  of  aggressors  before.  These 
aggressors  weren't  interested  in 
our  obsolete  culture  of  liberalism. 
They  were  out  after  resources. 
When  North  America  went  to 
war  we  found  that  a  terrific 
stimulus  to  our  science  and  re- 
search activities  was  imperative. 
We  would  not  be  in  our  currently 
favorable  situation  had  not     our 


men  of  science,  research,  and 
technical  ability  been  given  the 
freest  support  they  ever  experi- 
enced. 

With  the  postwar  looming  a- 
head,  our  Continental  progression 
of  greater  technological  installa- 
tion will  continue.  It  will  demand 
that  science  studies  be  taken  in 
increased  proportion  to  studies  of 
the  liberal  arts.  We  must  never 
forget  that  our  universities  and 
colleges  are  designed  to  con- 
dition only  a  minute  part  of  our 
population,  that  part  which  has 
sufficient  finances  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  extended  education. 
The  elimination  of  man-hours  is 
a  force  majeure  quite  inconsider- 
ate of  the  humble  offering  of  the 
most  indoctrinated  student  of 
liberalism.  Intellectual  liberalism 
in  North  America  today  is  an 
antiquated  concoction  of  con- 
jecture, speculation,  and  argu- 
ment. It  is  a  hindrance  to  the 
clear  analytical  objective  thinking 
our  present  environment  de- 
mands. Should  it  remain  the 
focus  from  which  measures  for 
the  operations  of  Canada  and 
United  States  emanate,  then 
those  measures  and  their  appli- 
cation can  only  be  at  increasing 
variance  with  our  environment. 
A  technological  environment  re- 
quires unobstructed  technological 
operation. 


22 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


m  W 


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.</ . 


Watch  confusion  and  anarchy 
grow.  Thank  archaic  mental  con- 
ditioning for  it.  Witness  the  pa- 
thetic demonstrations  of  proffer- 
ed solutions  from  the  standard 
bearers  of  intellectual  liberalism, 
deciding  to  decide  not  to  decide. 
This  element  of  society  seeks  to 
soften  the  contempt  that  is  grow- 
ing for  venerated  concepts  ren- 
dered obsolete  in  the  new  envi- 
ronment that  technology  and 
science  is  creating.  Those  people 
who  are  in  accord  with  our  phy- 
sical progression  are  actually 
frightening  to  the  upholders  of 
the  status  quo. 

Just  now  a  great  revival  cam- 
paign for  confidence  in  the  Price 
System  and  the  old  ways  of  life 
in  an  era  of  scarcity  is  being 
waged  under  the  sanguine  title  of 
'We  need  free  enterprise.'  A  re- 
cent lengthy  advertisement  in  our 
daily  press  entitled  "The  World 
Surged  Forward,'  propounds  the 
following  astounding  conclusions: 

'The  dawn  of  the  industrial  re- 
volution came  in  1733  with  the 
invention  of  the  fly  shuttle  by  a 
Lancashire  watchmaker,  John 
Kay.  Thirty  years  later,  another 
Lancashire  man,  James  Hargrea- 
ves,  invented  a  spinning  wheel, 
which  he  named  after  his  wife 
the  spinning  Jenny.  Then  came 
Watt's  steam  engine,  Arkwright's 
cotton  mill,  Crompton's  mule,  and 
Edmund       Cartwright's       power 

MAY,  1945 


loom.  It  is  customary  to  say  that 
thus  were  laid  the  foundations  of 
our  great  textile  industry  and 
that  thus  the  industrial  revolu- 
tion got  under  way. 

'But  this  is  not  quite  accurate. 
Something  else  went  into  the  in- 
dustrial revolution.  At  the  psy- 
chological moment  appeared 
Adam  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations. 

'This  book  was  published  in 
1776,  the  year  of  the  American 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
only  a  few  years  ahead  of  the 
French  revolution — two  striking 
object  lessons  on  the  consequenc- 
es of  government  interference  in 
the  economic  affairs  of  the  peo- 
ple.' 

The  Wealth  of  Nations  was  the 
economic  bible  of  the  Price  Sys- 
tem for  many  decades.  It  was 
written  at  the  opportune  moment 
when  man's  horizons  in  produc- 
tion and  transportation  began  ra- 
pid extension.  This  extension 
made  possible,  in  fact  required, 
the  establishment  of  great  trade 
routes,  migration,  and  increasing 
population.  New  vistas  for  indi- 
vidual initiative  and  indepen- 
dence were  opened.  Nowhere 
were  these  trends  so  virile  as  in 
North  America  with  its  vast  un- 
populated area  and  its  unplunder- 
ed  resources. 

Dulcet  praise  for  'free  enter- 
prise'; maudlin  efforts  to  inspire  a 
'free  enterprise'  crusade;  sly  sug- 


23 


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gestions  that  it  is  the  antithesis 
of  government  interference  and 
meddling  in  individual  freedom; 
these  are  the  current  vaporings 
of  both  liberalism  and  reaction 
clutching  fondly  to  concepts  they 
are  loathe  to  release.  At  the 
same  time,  the  progression  of  our 
technology  calls  for  overall  de- 
sign and  ever-increasing  coordina- 
tion of  the  physical  factors  of  our 
economy.  We  have  no  choice  but 
to  follow  this  course  unless  we 
are  prepared  to  return  to  a  lower 
energy-converting  era  of  human 
toil,  scarcity,  and  deprivation. 

Another  lengthy  advertisement 
entitled  'What's  Wrong  With  Free 
Enterprise?'  tells  us: 

'The  reason  why  so  many 
people  do  not  know,  and  do  not 
appreciate  the  value  of  free  en- 
terprise, is  to  be  found  in  the 
simple  fact  that  nobody  under 
fifty-five  years  of  age  has  seen 
free  enterprise  in  normal  opera- 
tion. The  only  people  who  are 
competent,  from  personal  experi- 
ence, to  judge  free  enterprise,  are 
people  more  than  fifty-five  years 
of  age.  Free  enterprise  has  been 
badly  mistreated  since  1914.  It 
has  been  submitted  to  all  sorts  of 
unnatural  adjustments  to  keep  it 
operating  under  abnormal  world 
conditions,  under  conditions  quite 
different  from  those  it  was  de- 
signed to  serve,  and  which  it 
served  so  well.' 


Within  this  quote  we  find  the 
tacit  admission  that  'free  enter- 
prise' is  a  thing  of  the  past.  Only 
a  passing  generation  has  seen  it 
work  well.  What  guarantee  is 
there  that  there  will  not  be  a 
continuation  of  'abnormal  condi- 
tions' which  do  not  permit  'free 
enterprise'  to  work  well?  Are 
we  in  favor  of  yesterday  or  to- 
morrow? 

There  is  in  existence  on  this 
Continent  a  dual  conflict  in  which 
the  attempted  retention  of  'free 
enterprise'  is  opposed  to  the 
might  of  our  technology.  Great 
fear  is  expressed  for  the  future 
of  'free  enterprise'  in  the  columns 
of  our  daily  newspapers,  in  the 
babble  of  our  soothsayers.  Tech- 
nocracy has  no  qualms  about  the 
dissolution  of  'free  enterprise.' 
Its  record  carries  the  stench  of 
adulterated  foods,  crime,  disease, 
malnutrition,  waste,  destruction, 
charity,  slum  areas,  illiteracy,  in- 
security, quackery,  inflation,  debt, 
taxes,  depressions,  shelved  pat- 
ents, and  thousands  of  other  ele- 
ments ot  sabotage  of  the  general 
welfare.  'Free  enterprise'  only 
means  freedom  to  maintain  arti- 
ficial scarcity,  freedom  to  operate 
for  'private  gain  against  the  pub- 
lic good.' 

With  fear  of  the  demise  of 
cherished  concepts,  our  liberals 
and  our  reactionaries  scream 
that  if  'free  enterprise'  should  go, 


24 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


then  dictatorship,  totalitarianism, 
fascism,  communism,  or  some  oth- 
er damnation  of  our  society  will 
rise  to  regiment  us  in  something 
far  worse  than  we  have  now. 

This  Continent  faces  inevitable 
social  change.  It  is  time  more  of 
us  were  working  for  that  change 
instead  of  against  it.  It  will  be 
the  greatest  revolutionary  ad- 
vancement of  all  time.  Neither 
fascism  nor  communism  can  be 
designed  to  conform  to  the  speci- 
fications our  Continental  tech- 
nology demands. 

No  Price  System  in  any  guise 
can  be  sufficiently  adapted  to  en- 
sure the  four  freedoms  of  the  At- 
lantic Charter.  The  four  freedoms 
are  achievable  on  this  Continent 


only  when  our  technology  is  re- 
leased from  its  Price  System 
shackles. 

Let  us  institute  Total  Conscrip- 
tion of  the  entirety  of  our  Con- 
tinental operations  to  hasten  con- 
clusion of  the  war  and  to  ensure 
a  minimum  of  oscillation  in  the 
transition  from  war  to  peace.  Let 
us  operate  with  Total  Conscription 
from  now  until  six  months  after 
the  war  is  ended,  then  let  the 
people  of  this  Continent  decide 
which  way  they  want  to  go.  They 
will  not  require  much  time  to 
swing  into  step  with  our  scien- 
tists, technologists,  and  engineers 
on  the  way  to  the  New  America. 
—Milton  Wildfong 


The  Invention  As  a  Troublemaker 

*  A  BANKER  ONCE  DEFINED  AN  INVENTION  as  something 
which  makes  securities  insecure.  Thus,  a  cheap  prefabricated  house, 
paid  for  at  $35  down  and  $35  a  month,  that  could  be  set  up  from  a 
truck  in  two  weeks,  would  influence  the  existing  mortgage  market  on 
present  urban  homes.  A  manufacturer  once  built  a  new  factory  and 
equipped  it  with  $100,000  worth  of  new  machinery,  which  he  scrapped 
without  using.  A  new  invention  had  made  it  out-of-date,  and  he  re- 
equipped  it  with  the  new  machines.  Thus  do  inventions  create  busi- 
ness hazards,  and  frequently  downfalls. 

Inventions  make  trouble  not  only  for  business  men,  but  also  for 
statesmen.  These  difficulties  we  call  social  problems.  For  instance, 
machines  that  roll  steel  cold  are  taking  jobs  away  from  thousands 
of  steel  workers  who  have  spent  years  in  developing  their  skills. 
Walking  the  streets,  they  look  for  work  that  cannot  be  found.  Among 
miners  the  new  drilling  and  loading  machinery  is  creating  similar 
havoc.  This  is  called  'the  problem  of  technological  unemployment'- 
rather  impersonal  language  for  one  of  the  most  tragic  of  human 
misfortunes.  — Professor  W.  F.  Ogburn 


m 

Hi         si 
^■1 


MAY,  1945 


A  Burning  Shame 


For  many  years  Technocracy  has  been  pointing  out  that  the  Price 
System  becomes  inoperable  when  confronted  with  abundance.  By 
creating  an  artificial  scarcity,  the  destruction  of  war  materials  is  an 
attempt  to  keep  the  system  running. 


NOT  long  ago  I  had  a  ride 
with  one  of  the  most  noted 
clergymen  in  Canada.  He  had 
served  with  the  RAF  in  the  last 
war.  It  was  one  of  his  tragic 
jobs  to  be  an  unwilling  party  to 
what  he  considered  a  gross  crime. 

It  was  in  England,  when  the 
shooting  was  all  over.  Brand 
new  planes  were  delivered  by  the 
manufacturers  to  the  RAF  depot. 
They  were  flown  once — then  im- 
mediately destroyed  on  the 
ground. 

The  planes  had  to  be  flown  be- 
cause the  standard  war  contract 
stipulated  that.  Otherwise  the 
national  treasury  refused  to  pay. 
But  as  soon  as  the  plane  had  been 
flown  once,  by  men  in  RAF  uni- 
form, the  government's  postwar 
policy  came  into  play. 

That  was  to  destroy  planes  in 
order  to  keep  them  from  swamp- 
ing the  peace-time  markets  of  the 
plane .  makers. 

Now  the  news  dispatches  tell 
us  that  we  are  doing  the  very 
same  thing  here  in  Canada.     Re- 


Reprinted    from    Vancouver    Sun 
26 


putable  newspapers  in  Alberta 
talk  of  the  million-dollar  bonfire 
in  which  large  numbers  of  train- 
ing planes  were  consigned  to  the 
flames.  The  most  sinister  feature 
of  the  whole  affair  is  that  the 
newspapers  were  not  allowed  to 
have  their  own  reporters  and 
photographers  on  the  spot  to 
cover  the  event  as  fully  as  it 
should  have  been. 

Surely  the  whole  matter  is  one 
on  which  there  should  be  a  na- 
tional showdown.  The  sooner  the 
better.  If  we  are  to  wreck  and 
destroy  valuable  commodities — 
simply  to  preserve  profitable 
markets  for  peacetime  manufac- 
turers— then  we  have  learned 
little  from  this  war. 

The  necessary  waste  of  war  is 
bad  enough.  But  unnecessary 
waste,  after  the  war  is  over,  is  an 
outrage. 

There  are  only  two  possible 
reasons  why  such  equipment  or 
supplies  should  be  burned  or 
destroyed: 

Because  they  are  of  no  value 
to  any  individual  or  public  body; 
or   because   cost   of   disposing   of 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


; 


/'■*Llt' 


P 


fSs 


H   KM 


H       ■NRHJ 


them  is  greater  than  the  returns 
from  the  disposal  .... 

Not  a  single  stick  of  war  ma- 
terial should  be  destroyed  if  such 
is  of  value  to  anybody  in  Canada 
or  elsewhere.  If  the  government 
can't  sell  any  particular  item  let 
its  servants  try  giving  the  stuff 
away.  If  nobody  wants  to  buy 
surely  the  thing  to  do  is  to  say 
'come  and  get  it.'  Then  if  nobody 
wants  the  stuff  as  a  gift  it  will  be 
time  to  burn  or  bury  it.  Not  be- 
fore. 

The  excuse  is  made  that  the 
planes  burned  in  Alberta  were 
not  air-worthy.  Maybe  so.  But 
there  are  tens  of  thousands  of 
well-trained  young  aircraftsmen 
who  would  have  been  glad  to  buy 


those  old  planes  for  a  few  dollars 
and  who  would  have  been  not 
only  able  but  glad  to  refit  them  to 
pass  all  reasonable  tests. 

The  real  reason — many  of  us 
believe — is  the  same  as  after  the 
last  war.  The  manufacturers  of 
planes  and  cars  and  trucks  and 
blankets,  and  everything  else 
from  shoes  to  ships  and  sealing 
wax,  want  the  government  to 
burn  or  bury  everything  left  over 
from  the  war. 

They  don't  want  farmers  to 
buy  jeeps  for  $50,  nor  farmers' 
wives  to  buy  good  blankets  for  a 
dollar  apiece.  They  want  to  keep 
the  public  scarcity  system  and 
the  big  private  profits  to  go  with 
it.  — Elmore  Philpott 


I  I  I 


Foreign  Trade  and  Prosperity! 

FOR  THOSE  POLITICIANS  who  are  continually  leading  American 
producers  and  Labor  astray  by  promising  the  restoration  of  foreign 
trade,  and  for  those  who  are  still  looking  to  foreign  trade  to  bring 
prosperity  to  the  American  nation  we  would  like  to  call  attention  to 
the  following:  In  1933  President  Roosevelt  commissioned  George 
Peek,  the  nation's  leading  foreign  trade  expert,  to  prepare  a  report 
of  America's  foreign  trade  between  the  years  1896  and  1934,  a  period 
of  38  years.  With  the  $50,000  furnished  Mr.  Peek  he  began  his  survey 
and  one  year  later  submitted  it  to  Roosevelt.  No  one  ever  heard  any- 
thing about  it  as  Peek  concluded  his  report  with  this  statement:  'Our 
foreign  trade  for  the  38  years  between  1896  and  1934  did  not  bring  us 
a  profit,  but  brought  us  instead  a  loss  of  $22  billion.'  So  dear  reader, 
if  we  recover  our  foreign  trade,  as  promised  by  the  politician,  we  are 
sunk!  — California  Mining  Journal 


MAY,   1945 


27 


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Parking  Headache?  -  Try  a  TC  Pill 

Our  present  parking  problem  is  a  headache  to  the  public  and  traffic 
officers  alike.  Total  Conscription  of  all  means  of  transportation 
would  not  only  relieve  our  traffic  congestion  but  would  conserve 
a  huge  supply  of  gasoline. 


EVERY  weekday  Vancouver 
traffic  officers  patrol  the 
streets  affixing  tickets  on  auto- 
mobiles for  parking  infractions. 
Though  these  infractions  run  the 
gamut  of  all  imaginable  offences, 
by  far  the  greater  number  of 
them  represent  charges  of  over- 
time parking  and  of  parking  in 
prohibited  or  restricted  areas. 
The  unfortunate  delinquents  who 
have  the  dubious  privilege  of 
owning  the  offending  vehicles 
may  settle  their  debt  with  society 
by  paying  a  two  dollar  fine  with- 
in 48  hours  or  else  receive  a  sum- 
mons to  court. 

What  has  been  the  result  of  the 
issuance  of  these  many  parking 
tickets?  The  system  was  insti- 
tuted several  years  ago,  and  liter- 
ally thousands  of  tickets  are  given 
out  each  year — 7500  annually  is 
the  past  eight  years'  average — 
so  now  it  may  be  observed  with 
some  authority  just  how  effective 
the  system  has  been. 

Despite  the  persistence  of  Van- 
couver's boys  in  blue,  their  ef- 
forts have  in  no  way  solved  the 
parking  problem.  There  are  as 
many  cars  lining  the  curbs  of  our 


busiest  thoroughfares  today  as 
there  ever  were,  and  they  just  as 
persistently  continue  to  defy  the 
city  parking  by-laws.  Is  it  that 
these  car  owners  are  inveterate 
offenders  who  willingly  and 
knowingly  continue  the  same 
practices  day  after  day  in  open 
defiance  of  the  law,  and  who  hope 
that  such  actions  will  ultimately 
discourage  the  police  into  leaving 
them  alone? 

On  the  contrary,  they  are  just 
average  citizens  who  attempt  as 
much  as  possible  to  be  law-abid- 
ing. Why  then,  do  they  contin- 
ue parking  their  vehicles  in 
wrong  places  and  for  longer  times 
than  they  are  supposed  to? 

The  answer  is  simple.  There 
is  no  other  place  to  park  their 
cars.  True,  there  are  a  few  small 
parking  lots  located  in  the  central 
part  of  the  city  which  rent  their 
facilities,  and  some  concerns  run 
parking  lots  in  conjunction  with 
their  businesses  for  the  use  of 
their  customers,  but  these  do  not 
begin  to  handle  the  number  of 
private  vehicles  which  daily  come 
into  the  metropolitan  area,  so  the 
bulk  of  the  car  owners  have  no 


28 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


EH      H3I 

■■      Bi 
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alternative  but  to  park  on  the 
streets.  In  order  to  avoid  over- 
time infringements,  many  of  them 
periodically  move  their  cars  from 
one  spot  to  another,  but  this  in 
no  way  alleviates  the  parking 
problem,  as  other  vehicles  im- 
mediately move  into  the  places 
they  have  vacated. 

It  may  be  asked  why  the  cars 
are    not   allowed   to    park     in     a 
given  place    indefinitely    without 
being  troubled.  Ineffective  as  the 
solution  has  proven,  the  reasons 
for  restricting  parking  are  sound. 
Essentially,  the  purpose  of  thor- 
oughfares is  for  moving  vehicles, 
not   parked    ones.     Hence,     each 
static    automobile    is    an   obstacle 
to  traffic  as  it  lessens  the  usable 
portion  of  the  street  by  the  width 
of    the    automobile.      If    cars    are 
parked  on  both  sides  of  the  street 
as   they   usually  are,   at  least   12 
feet  of  the  street's  width  is  lost 
to  moving  traffic.     Consequently, 
comparatively  narrow  streets  are 
subjected   to     even    greater   con- 
gestion than  they  would  normally 
have,    thus    increasing    the    acci- 
dent potential  in  the  area  where 
such     potential     is     already     the 
highest  of  any  portion  of  the  city. 
Is   there   no   solution     to     this 
seemingly      perplexing      problem 
which  has  so  long  vexed  the  traf- 
fic authorities  of  this  city?  There 
obviously  is,  but  it  is  doubtful  if 
it  will  ever  be  applied  within  the 

MAY.  191.S 


framework  of  the  existing  society, 
for  it  is  a  problem  which  provides 
considerable  'moolah'  for  the  civic 
coffers.  Kill  the  goose  that  lays 
the  golden  eggs  even  if  it  does 
get  in  the  way  all  the  time? 
Hardly. 

Technocracy  holds  the  answer 
to  the  situation  in  its  victory  pro- 
gram of  Total  Conscription,  and 
since  the  slogan  of  this  program 
is  'National  Service  from  All  and 
Profits  to  None,'  the  question  of 
revenue  is  not  considered.  Ser- 
vice in  the  national  crisis  is  the 
sole  criterion  upon  which  actions 
are  taken. 

Before  presenting  the  solution, 
let  us  examine  the  use  of  private 
vehicles  from  the  standpoint  of 
load  factor  efficiency.  To  tech- 
nologists, 'load  factor'  is  a  very 
definite  term  representing  the 
ratio  between  the  amount  of  work 
actually  done  by  a  machine  and 
the  amount  it  was  designed  to  do. 
Hence,  if  the  machine  is  running 
at  full  capacity  for  24  hours  each 
day,  it  is  said  to  be  operating  on 
a  100'/  load  factor.  However,  if 
it  is  only  running  6  to  8  hours 
each  day,  it  is  operating  on  load 
factors  of  25'/  and  33-1/3%  re- 
spectively. On  this  basis,  it  may 
be  seen  that  the  load  factor  for 
passenger  automobiles  is  very 
low.  Seldom  does  a  private  car 
carry  its  full  quota  of  passengers 
except  on  pleasure  trips — in  fact 


29 


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the  national  passenger  average 
for  private  passenger  vehicles  is 
1.75  per  car  including  the  driver 
— and  its  daily  run  generally  con- 
sists of  a  short  run  down  town 
in  the  morning  and  a  return  trip 
in  the  evening  with  possibly  an 
additional  run  at  lunch  time.  Be- 
tween these  brief  periods  of  oper- 
ation, the  vehicle  rests  either  in 
some  parking  lot  or  else  on  the 
side  of  a  street — more  likely  the 
latter.  After  the  day's  work  is 
done,  this  symbol  of  individual 
egotism  is  run  into  the  home  gar- 
age where  it  reposes  in  complete 
idleness  until  the  following  morn- 
ing when  the  same  procedure  is 
repeated.  This  classic  inertia  of 
the  private  automobile  has  result- 
ed in  its  having  a  load  factor  of 
5%!  Thus,  if  we  increased  the 
load  factor  of  operating  vehicles 
to  a  mere  50%,  or  ten  times  the 
present  average,  we  would  still 
obtain  the  same  service  with  only 
l/10th  of  the  cars  now  in  use. 

The  solution,  then,  unfolds  it- 
self. Under  Total  Conscription, 
those  vehicles  which  were  essen- 
tial to  public  service  would  be 
allotted  all  the  fuel  they  required, 
while  the  rest  would  do  without. 
The  present  'honor'  system  of 
rationing  has  not  been  very  suc- 
cessful, for  many  persons,  parti- 
cularly those  in  low  gasoline  cate- 
gories, have  violated  the  appeal 
to  use   their  allotments  only  for 


essential  driving  by  using  public 
conveyances  for  normal  use  and 
saving  their  ration  for  pleasure 
driving.  They  would  automatic- 
ally be  ruled  off  the  road  if  their 
fuel  supply  were  eliminated. 

For  greater  material  economy 
and  better  service,  Total  Con- 
scription would  largely  displace 
private  vehicles  by  employing 
public  transit  systems  much  more 
extensively  than  is  done  today. 

By  way  of  illustration,  let  us 
roughly  compare  the  services 
rendered  by  bus  and  private  car. 
Since  we  are  assuming  a  purely 
hypothetical  case,  it  must  be  un- 
derstood that  there  are  many 
considerations  which  generally 
enter  the  picture  to  alter  it  one 
way  or  the  other,  but  they  need 
not  be  taken  into  account  here. 
For  the  most  part  these  considera- 
tions would  swing  the  balance 
heavily  in  favor  of  bus  service, 
so  our  conservative  picture  is  ex- 
tremely beneficent  to  private  car 
operation. 

For  our  purposes,  let  us  con- 
sider a  72-passenger  bus  (maxi- 
mum load  of  a  bus  in  use  on  Van- 
couver streets)  and  a  5-passenger 
car  running  at  full  capacity  for 
one  hour.  They  each  unload  at 
the  half-way  mark  and  return  to 
their  starting  point  with  fresh 
full  capacity  loads,  thus  trans- 
porting respective  totals  of  144 
and  10  passengers  each.    The  bus 


30 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■  ■ 


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runs  5  miles  to  a  gallon  of  gaso- 
line and  the  car  18  miles  to  a 
gallon,  so  if  each  runs  10  miles 
per  hour  (average  bus  speed  in- 
cluding terminal  stopovers  and 
passenger  stops)  they  require 
respectively  2  gallons  and  5/9ths 
of  a  gallon.  This  divides  down 
to  l/72nd  of  a  gallon  per  person 
in  the  case  of  the  bus  and  l/18th 
of  a  gallon  per  person  in  the  case 
of  the  private  vehicle.  Thus,  to 
transport  144  persons  on  these 
bases,  it  would  require  2  gallons 
as  previously  stated  for  the  bus, 
and  8  gallons  for  the  automobile 
— four  times  as  much! 

Returning  to  the  problem  of 
street  space,  we  find  that  to  trans- 
port the  72-passenger  bus  load 
in  private  5-passenger  cars  would 
require  15  of  them,  and  since  each 
covers  approximately  one-half 
the  space  of  a  bus,  it  would  re- 
quire seven  times  as  much  street 
space  to  accommodate  them.  On 
these  premises,  the  implications 
concerning  parking  are  clear. 

Bus  service,  which  in  Van- 
couver is  only  a  feeder  to  the 
street  electric  railway  system, 
could  be  easily  doubled  and  still 
remain  far  below  the  total  fuel 
requirements  of  privately  owned 
vehicles.  The  resultant  necessary 
increase  of  the  streetcar  service 
is  a  detail  which  would  be  effi- 
ciently and  easily  handled  under 
the  Total  Conscription  program. 

MAY.  1945 


By  one  stroke,  therefore,  two 
problems  are  solved.  A  huge 
supply  of  gasoline  which  annually 
is  wasted  would  be  conserved  for 
more  urgent  needs,  and  the  cars 
thus  removed  from  the  streets 
would  cease  to  present  a  parking 
problem.  Those  vehicles  which 
were  in  use  would  be  too  busy  to 
make  other  than  necessary  and 
brief  curb  stops  in  providing  their 
service. 

The  advantages  thus  accruing 
to  the  individual  would  obviously 
be  great.  The  car  owner  would 
not  have  to  drive  all  over  town 
looking  for  parking  space;  he 
would  not  have  to  leave  his  work 
every  little  while  to  move  his  car 
to  avoid  getting  a  parking  ticket; 
and  he  would  not  be  continually 
plagued  by  paying  fines  for  a 
condition  which  was  out  of  his 
control. 

Speaking  from  the  point  of 
view  of  community  welfare,  the 
consequent  clearing  off  the  street 
of  parked  vehicles  would  enable 
those  still  operating  in  public  ser- 
vice to  have  complete  freedom  of 
movement  in  utilizing  the  whole 
street  and,  incidentally,  would 
cut  to  a  fraction  the  accident 
potential  which  now  exists. 

Total  Conscription  is  the  ans- 
wer to  this  and  other  problems  to 
which  the  existing  controls  can 
offer  no  solution. 

— Rupert  N.  Urquhart 


■**  •  I 


«f» 


JLmty 


if         %i 
fKQpSf 


JH1 


Mill  -  Production  Per  Manhour 


Britain  is  beginning  to  see  that  the  cut-throat  competition  for  mar- 
kets in  the  postwar  world  will  demand  greatly  increased  mechaniz- 
ation of  her  production  facilities.  She  is  comparing  her  'production 
per  manhour'  with  that  of  the  United  States.    ■ 


LONDON— T  he  war  has 
brought  forth  many  a  new 
phrase  and  abbreviation.  But  the 
one  most  likely  to  stick  in  busi- 
ness usage  after  the  war  over 
here  is  PMH — production  per 
manhour. 

This  newcomer  to  the  indus- 
trial lexicon  made  quite  an  illus- 
trious debut  last  October  in  the 
Piatt  report  on  the  cotton  textile 
mission  to  the  United  States.  (See 
The  Financial  Post,  Feb.  3,  1945, 
U.  S.  Letter.)  That  report  will 
be  recalled  as  putting  the  British 
cotton  industry  in  a  very  poor 
light  as  compared  with  the  Am- 
erican industry  and  noting  among 
other  things,  that  the  British 
'PMH'  in  certain  operations  of 
cotton  textile  business  is  less  than 
the  American  by  as  much  as  89 
percent. 

At  the  time  of  its  appearance 
the  Piatt  report  was  something  of 
a  bombshell  and  since  then  a  good 
many  Britons  have  been  doing  a 
lot  of  wondering  about  other  in- 
dustries. They  have  been  asking: 
'if  British  PMH  is  as  much  lower 


Reprinted  from   Financial  Post. 


than  the  American  in  the  cotton 
industry — in  which  we  are  wont 
to  claim  pre-eminence — how 
much  lower  is  it  in  the  steel  and 
coal  mining  industries  in  which 
America  has  made  vast  technical 
strides?' 

During  the  past  few  months  the 
problem  of  exports  has  assumed 
prime  national  importance  and 
the  British  realize  that  it  will  be 
a  mighty  hard  thing  to  increase 
their  export  trade  after  the  war 
without  turning  on  all  the  pro- 
ductive efficiency  of  which  they 
are  capable. 

Sir  Walter  Citrine,  trade  union 
chief,  declared  in  a  recent  article 
that  the  reason  American  output 
is  markedly  higher  than  British 
'lies  in  the  greater  readiness  to 
install  and  use  machinery.'  Sir 
Walter  added: 

'Many  jobs  that  are  laboriously 
performed  by  hand  in  this  coun- 
try are  done  by  machines  in  the 
U.  S.  A.  Moreover,  much  of  the 
capital  equipment  in  Britain  is 
obsolete.  We  need  new  and  im- 
proved machinery.  The  readiness 
to  scrap  old  machines  and  replace 
them  by  new  ones  is  very  much 


32 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


more  marked  in  the  United  States 
than  in  Britain.' 

This  need  for  greater  mech- 
anization seems  to  be  fairly  well 
recognized  throughout  British  in- 
dustry. Recognition  of  the  prob- 
lem and  overcoming  it,  however, 
are  two  far  different  things.  An 
ambitious  program  of  mechaniz- 
ation inevitably  ties  in  with  the 
questions  of  financing  conditions, 
taxation  policies  and  to  what  ex- 
tent and  along  what  lines  govern- 
ment is  going  to  direct  postwar 
industry.  Fully  as  important 
would  be  the  understanding  and 
co-operation  of  the  workers. 

Sir  Walter  Citrine  has  express- 
ed that  difficult  latter  phase  this 
way: 

'They  (employers)  are  not  the 
only  people  who  have  an  objec- 
tion to  substituting  machinery  for 
men.  The  trade  unionist  has  seen 
too  many  of  his  mates  thrown  out 
of  work  by  that  process  to  like 
it  very  much.  The  trouble  is  that 
when  machines  or  new  methods 
of  production  are  employed  the 
immediate  effect  is  to  displace 
labor. 

T  know,  of  course,  that  this  is 
only  a  means  to  an  end.  The  real 
purpose  is  cheaper  production, 
and  eventually  the  cheaper  you 
can  sell  goods  the  more  of  them 
are  likely  to  be  bought.  But  that 
is  not  much  consolation  to  the 
fellow  who  has  been  thrown  out 


of  work  in  the  process.' 

British  industrialist  Sir  Arnold 
Gridley  has  given  four  rules  for 
attainment  of  highest  economic 
PMH.     Here  they  are: 

1.  Provide  and  maintain  mach- 
inery equipment  as  nearly  100% 
up-to-date  as  possible  and  justi- 
fiable. 

2.  Set  time  and  rate  for  each 
operation — such  calculation  to  be 
by  a  true  expert — to  enable  the 
average  operator  to  earn  ade- 
quate pay,  and  the  exceptionally 
skilled  and  industrious,  a  higher 
reward. 

3.  Abandonment  by  employees 
of  restrictions  limiting  output — 
such  as  claims  for  demarcation, 
the  right  to  decide  number  of 
operators  per  machine,  and  so  on. 

4.  Adoption  of  bonus  schemes 
for  operative  labor  based  on  the 
output  of  the  factory  or  depart- 
ment. 

In  such  ways  British  capital 
and  labor  are  scanning  the  way 
to  greater  productivity  of  labor. 
Stepping  up  PMH  is  felt  to  be  a 
leading  factor  in  maintaining  a 
high  level  of  employment  but  the 
method  of  achieving  it  must  be 
of  an  almost  revolutionary  char- 
acter; will  make  demands  on  the 
understanding,  imagination  and 
ambition  of  employer  and  em- 
ployees alike  which  may  test  the 
resiliency  and  character  of  British 
industrial  life  as  a  whole. 


MAY,  1945 


33 


^H 


'»''■•■»>>*.- 


Visual  Education  of  History 


A  visit  to  Chicago's  fourteen-acre  'Museum  of  Science  and  Industry.' 
The  exhibits  demonstrate  the  efficiency  of  applying  science  to  human 
affairs.     Why  not  utilize  science  for  distribution   as  well  as  produc- 


tion f 

LIBRARIES  throughout  North 
America  provide  detailed 
history  in  printed  form;  but  to 
see  man's  scientific  progress  in 
actual  exhibits  as  shown  in  Chi- 
cago's fourteen  acre  'Museum  of 
Science  and  Industry'  causes 
greater  appreciation  of  the  ma- 
chine-age environment  in  which 
we  find  ourselves  today.  Julius 
Rosenwald,  founder  of  this  muse- 
um, realized  that  the  significance 
of  scientific  progress  is  more  im- 
pressive when  viewing  the  con- 
trast between  yesterday's  slow 
hand-methods  and  today's  mass 
production  machine-methods. 

Every  Technocrat  will  be  in 
harmony  with  the  theme  express- 
ed by  all  these  exhibits  which 
prove  that  'Science  discerns  the 
Laws  of  Nature;  and  Industry 
applies  these  laws  to  the  Needs 
of  Man.'  This  same  theme  is  also 
the  basis  of  Technocracy,  which 
is  'Science  Applied  to  the  Social 
Order.' 

Citizens  fortunate  enough  to 
visit  this  outstanding  museum 
will  see  many  exhibits  of  indus- 
trial progress  actually  in  full  op- 
eration.    Each  section  is  grouped 


into  sequences,  tracing  early  dis- 
coveries up  to  present  day  pro- 
duction. Students  will  realize 
that  as  scientific  research  estab- 
lishes more  facts,  so  production 
methods  become  more  efficient. 
Even  today,  North  America  could 
convert  extraneous  energy  at  a 
rate  that  would  ensure  every  citi- 
zen a  high  standard  of  living  from 
birth  to  death;  including  an  a- 
bundance  of  food,  clothing,  shel- 
ter, health-conveniences,  educa- 
tion-facilities, entertainment,  etc. 
All  this  can  be  realized  as  soon 
as  we  are  willing  to  distribute 
goods   and   services  scientifically. 

Entering  this  museum  we  find 
the  'Periodic  Table  of  the  Ele- 
ments' where  each  of  the  92  ele- 
ments is  on  display,  the  samples 
showing  how  they  are  used  for 
the  benefit  and  convenience  of 
man.  This  exhibit  points  out  that 
these  elements  are  the  building 
blocks  of  the  universe;  and  a 
study  of  chemistry  proves  that 
the  earth  and  all  matter  upon  it 
are  composed  of  various  combina- 
tions of  these. 

The  agriculture  section  provides 
exhibits  illustrating  the  story  of 


34 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


Hi 

HIH 


r 


v -'v  -       lei 


m 


EM? 


farm  machinery  from  the  early 
Babylonian  stick-plow  up  to  the 
present.  A  contrast  between  an- 
cient and  modern  seeders  is 
shown,  and  the  development  of 
the  reaper  is  explained  by  a  series 
of  models  that  trace  the  evolution 
of  the  sickle  to  the  modern  binder 
and  thresher.  Milling  processes 
are  shown  from  crude  mill  stones 
of  Indian  times  to  the  whirling, 
gleaming  rollers  of  today.  (Yes, 
the  more  scientifically  our  food  is 
produced,  the  greater  will  be  the 
available  supplies.  Why  in  this 
day  and  age  of  potential  abund- 
ance should  any  citizen  be  under- 
nourished due  to  lack  of  proper 
foods?  The  interference  consists 
in  our  clinging  to  yesterday's 
Price  System  Control  methods 
which  can  only  distribute  scar- 
city.) 

The  transportation  display  has 
exhibits  of  the  stage-coach,  early 
automobile,  steam  locomotives; 
also  full  size  horse-street-car  and 
cable-street-car — both  of  which 
were  used  in  Chicago  only  39 
years  ago.  'The  story  of  modern 
railroading  is  told  in  the  3,000  sq. 
ft.  miniature  Museum  and  Santa 
Fe  electric  railroad  which  is  kept 
in  constant  operation,  showing 
passenger  and  freight  travel  over 
the  slopes  of  the  Middle  West,  the 
American  desert  with  glimpses  of 
the  Grand  Canyon,  California, 
fruit   groves   and   oil    wells,     car 

MAY,  1945 


shops  and  industrial  plants  served 
by  rail.  Four  trains  and  switch 
engine  operate  on  more  than  a 
thousand  feet  of  track  from  a 
centralized  traffic  control  panel. 
The  system  is  protected  through- 
out by  automatic  block-signals  as 
used   in  present-day  railroading.' 

Exhibits  of  passenger  balloons, 
gliders,  an  early  plane  made  by 
the  Wright  Brothers,  and  full  size 
modern  aircraft  illustrate  rapid 
progress  in  air  transportation. 

These  scientific  improvements 
have  shortened  time-distance  be- 
tween points,  speeding  workmen 
from  home  to  place  of  employ- 
ment; from  city  to  city;  and  from 
one  continent  to  another  in  a 
matter  of  hours.  Improved  trans- 
portation facilities  greatly  change 
our  environment  and  provide 
many  opportunities  that  did  not 
exist  in  the  horse-buggy  days. 
Nor  can  the  present  population 
on  North  America  ever  go  back 
to  the  slow  environment  that 
Grandpa  existed  in. 

The  physics  section  includes 
exhibits  that  show  the  measure- 
ments of  heat,  light  and  sound; 
time,  magnetism  and  electricity. 
A  beam  of  light,  with  the  aid  of 
photo-electric  cell,  becomes  the 
medium  for  transmitting  music 
through  space.  Gas  filled  tubes 
are  made  to  glow  without  exter- 
nal connections.  A  flashing  stro- 
boscope appears  to  bring  to  rest 


35 


JEffl 


I  I  ■ 


• .  *. 


mi 

H 


nF, 


3sot 


mat 


,  ■  ■ 


WU&jrX 


HBBEnfanB 


■ 


^■1  35s 


objects  which  are  spinning  at  a 
dizzy  speed. 

'Yesterday's  Main  Street'  is  a 
full  cobblestone  street,  with  brick 
sidewalks  and  fashion  shops  as 
displayed  in  1910.  This  exhibit 
supposedly  is  to  impress  the  pub- 
lic with  the  inefficiency  of  streets 
and  stores  of  35  years  ago.  But 
to  a  student  of  Technocracy  even 
today's  cluttered  streets  with 
their  dangerous  intersections;  the 
side-walks  packed  with  mobs  of 
people  milling  back  and  forth 
hoping  to  find  bargains;  and  store 
after  store  competing  with  each 
other  in  mass  duplication  as  many 
times  over  as  there  are  blocks  in 
the  city  indicate  little  progress  as 
compared  with  the  over-night 
changes  that  will  take  place  as 
soon  as  Price  System  controls  no 
longer  interfere  with  the  efficient 
distribution  of  goods  and  services. 
Just  as  men  and  women  in  today's 
Armed  Forces  are  provided  with 
food,  clothing,  shelter,  health-ser- 
vices, entertainment,  etc.  without 
unnecessary  advertising,  or  dup- 
lication of  services:  so  could  a 
Technate  guarantee  distribution 
of  abundance  to  all  its  citizens. 

The  medical  science  exhibit 
traces  the  story  of  human  growth 
from  the  first  cell  division  to  the 
adult  structure;  and  the  trans- 
parent model  of  a  woman  pro- 
vides the  visual  material  for  a 
dramatic  demonstration  of  the  in- 


tricacy of  the  human  body.  The 
glands  of  internal  secretion  are 
spotlighted  on  another  figure  to 
show  them  as  sources  of  vital  hor- 
mones; related  panels  show  the 
physical  results  of  hormone  defi- 
ciency, and  how  subnormal  gland 
activity  may  be  supplemented. 
For  example,  if  the  pituitary 
gland  (located  beneath  the 
brain)  does  not  manufacture  suf- 
ficient hormone  for  normal 
growth  of  the  body,  then  extra 
hormone  secretion  may  be  inject- 
ed to  obtain  required  results.  The 
advance  of  surgery  and  hospital- 
ization is  told  by  a  series  of  dio- 
ramic  scenes  typical  of  the  pre- 
anesthetic operating  room,  and 
before  the  era  of  asceptic  and 
antiseptic  surgery  shown  in  con- 
trast with  a  wholly  modern  oper- 
ating room.  History  tells  us  of 
the  millions  of  mothers  and  babies 
who  lost  their  lives  during  child- 
birth due  to  lack  of  scientific  care. 
We  can  also  multiply  this  total 
many  times  over  for  premature 
deaths  caused  by  ignorance  and 
superstition. 

The  entire  process  of  printing 
production  is  shown  by  modern 
equipment,  including  lithograph 
and  photo-engraving  processes.  In 
contrast  to  the  speed  and  effici- 
ency of  these  machines  is  an  old 
monk  at  his  laborious  task  of 
copying  manuscripts  by  hand. 
Just  stop  a  minute    and    realize 


36 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


how  many  books  would  be  in  our 
libraries  today  if  we  still  depend- 
ed upon  hand  methods.  Consider 
how  many  days,  weeks,  or  maybe 
months  it  would  take  to  repro- 
duce a  daily  newspaper  by  hand! 
Yet  today's  machines  can  easily 
toss  out  a  48-page  newspaper  at 
a  rate  of  1000  copies  per  minute. 

Along  with  models  of  famous 
bridges  and  many  other  exhibits 
in  the  engineering  department  is 
an  operating  model  of  Boulder 
Dam  illustrating  the  workings  of 
this  huge  reclamation  project. 
Scientific  methods  as  used  by  en- 
gineers in  constructing  large 
buildings  and  providing  furnish- 
ings for  them  are  also  on  display. 

A  few  of  the  other  exhibits  are 
a  full-sized  head  frame  and  hoist 
of  the  museum's  working  coal 
mine,  permitting  visitors  to  des- 
cend the  shaft  to  the  train  which 
carries  them  to  the  working  mine 
face.  Also  the  production  of  oil 
from  exploration  in  geological 
strata  below  the  earth  to  the  re- 
fining processes  is  shown  by  dio- 
ramas and  models.  Full  sized 
machines  that  forge  and  shape 
metals,  including  a  hot  strip  roll- 
ing mill  are  exhibits  in  the  metal 
department;  and  a  blacksmith 
shop  of  the  1850's  is  set  up  along- 


side a  modern  welding  booth. 

Examples  of  power  which 
drives  industry  are  shown  by 
windmills,  water  wheels,  high- 
powered  steam  engines,  electric 
generators,  and  the  internal  com- 
bustion engine.  An  operating 
replica  of  Newcomen's  atmos- 
pheric engine  (for  70  years  man's 
only  source  of  steam  power) 
stands  in  contrast  to  the  smoothly 
running  Corliss  machine.  A  1,- 
000,000-volt  surge  generator  pro- 
duces man-made  lightning  bolts 
which  shatter  two-by-four  blocks 
of  wood  with  a  thunderous  rever- 
beration that  echoes  throughout 
the  museum.  This  exhibit  shows 
how  the  research  laboratory  cre- 
ates its  own  duplications  of  nat- 
ural phenomena  in  order  to  de- 
velop protective  equipment  that 
will  help  maintain  essential  ser- 
vices and  provide  safe-guards  for 
human  life. 

The  efficiency  of  applying  sci- 
ence to  all  functions  is  proven 
throughout  this  whole  museum 
of  Science  and  Industry. 

If  all  our  progress  to  date  has 
been  made  possible  by  engineers 
using  scientific  methods  for  pro- 
duction, then  why  not  use  these 
same  methods  for  distribution? 

— Cyril  Large 


■JC  ASK  ANY  AMERICAN  what  he  wants  out  of  this  war  and  he  will  answer 
Security.  He  may  not  use  that  word.  He  may  say  a  home  and  family,  a  good  job, 
or  even  a  stack  of  sizzling  hot  pancakes.  But  it  is  a  sign  of  the  times  that  he  is 
more  likely  to  use  the  word  security.  — Marquis  Childs 


MAY,  1945 


37 


WSSmKmMtm 

■         mm 


What's  lew  in  Farming? 


A  brief  survey  of  some  recent  agricultural  developments  in  North 
America  reveals  that,  while  production  is  growing  more  and  more 
efficient  under  the  guidance  of  science  and  technology,  distribution 
grows  more  and  more  muddled  under  the  guidance  of  business  and 
politics. 


ON  the  farms  of  Canada  and 
the  U.S.,  agricultural  devel- 
opments are  rapidly  becoming 
technological  rather  than  labor- 
ing problems. 

Besides  the  Rototiller  and  oth- 
er special  cultivators  already  on 
farms,  two  new  devices  are  now 
ready — the  Bagan  Soil  Mixer  and 
the  McLaughlin  Soil  Mixer.  The 
Bagan  machine  is  designed  to 
eliminate  the  use  of  plows,  discs, 
and  harrows  and  completely  pre- 
pare the  soil  by  one  pass  over  the 
land.  The  McLaughlin  machine 
goes  a  step  farther  to  seed  as  well 
as  prepare  the  soil  in  a  single 
trip,  cutting  down  and  mixing-in 
the  stubble  or  stalks  of  the  pre- 
vious crop. 

Even  the  age-old  method  of 
drying  hay  in  the  sunlight,  with 
its  dependence  upon  the  supply 
of  labor  and  the  vagaries  of  the 
weather,  is  being  simplified  by 
engineering.  In  the  new  process  of 
barn-drying,  the  hay  is  cut,  mov- 
ed into  the  storage  place,  and 
dried  in  storage.  This  method  of 
curing  hay  by  forced-air-barn- 
drying  threatens  to  eliminate 
most  of  the  labor  of  haying.     The 


problem  of  low  cost  units  was 
tackled  a  few  years  ago  by  agri- 
cultural engineers  of  the  TVA 
and  several  installations  were 
tried  out  on  private  farms  under 
ordinary  working  conditions. 
These  have  proved  so  satisfactory 
that  manufacturers  of  electrical 
equipment,  blowers,  farm  equip- 
ment, and  power  companies  are 
all  set  to  squeeze  in  to  get  a  slice 
of  the  rapidly  expanding  market 
opened  up  by  this  labor-saving 
development  in  hay  drying. 

With  barn  drying  hay  can  be 
moved  to  the  loft  almost  immedi- 
ately it  is  cut,  thus  avoiding  the 
risk  of  spoilage  by  rain  and  the 
heavy  labor  of  turning  the  hay  in 
the  field.  The  vitamin  A  factor  is 
retained  and  the  protein  content, 
so  necessary  for  milk  and  meat, 
is  higher  than  is  usual  in  field 
cured  hay.  Farmers  will  not  have 
to  wait  for  farm  electrification  to 
install  barn  drying;  gasoline  and 
diesel  driven  fans  have  already 
proved  satisfactory. 

Another  important  agricultural 
development  is  that  of  using  min- 
eral fertilizers  on  pasture  lands. 
This  practice  is  already  credited 


38 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


with  producing  heavier  beef  cat- 
tle, more  calves,  and  heavier 
yearlings. 

Experiments  in  feeding  miner- 
als to  range  cattle  have  been  car- 
ried on  for  some  years,  and  best 
results  appear  to  have  been  ob- 
tained by  using  the  minerals  as 
fertilizers  rather  than  in  individ- 
ual doses,  feed  troughs,  or  in 
drinking  water. 

One  experiment  on  fertilized 
pasture  with  57  cows  on  640 
acres  showed  an  average  gain  in 
weight  in  three  years  from  704 
lbs.  to  1062  lbs.  Cows  on  the  ad- 
joining unfertilized  640  acres 
showed  an  average  increase  from 
707  lbs.  to  858  lbs.  in  the  same 
period. 

Cows  on  the  unfertilized  pas- 
ture produced  a  calf  crop  of  90%, 
88%  and  83%  for  the  three  years, 
with  the  first  year  calves  weigh- 
ing 500  lbs.  at  weaning. 

Cows  on  the  fertilized  pasture 
produced  a  100%  calf  crop  each 
of  the  three  years  with  calves 
weighing  544  lbs.  the  first  year 
at  weaning  and  582  lbs.  the  third 
year. 

While  production  grows  more 
and  more  efficient  under  the 
guidance  of  science  and  techno- 
logy, distribution  grows  more  and 
more  inefficient  and  muddled 
under  the  guidance  of  politics 
and  business.  And  the  more  ef- 
ficient  production   becomes,     the 


more  inefficient  will  be  the  dis- 
tribution, so  long  as  distribution 
is  left  in  the  control  of  politics 
and  business. 

Increased  efficiency  on  the 
farms  has  resulted  in  the  U.S.  de- 
veloping a  tremendous  stockpile 
of  wool.  At  the  end  of  1944  there 
was  on  hand  in  the  U.S.  almost 
three  billion  pounds  of  wool,  e- 
nough  for  about  two  years  peace- 
time requirements  or  one  full 
year  of  wartime  demand. 

Just  over  the  horizon  was  the 
hugh  U.S.  stockpile  of  wool  in 
Australia,  the  approaching  do- 
mestic spring  crop,  and  an  ex- 
pected surplus  in  the  Argentine. 
Just  over  the  horizon  also  was 
victory  for  the  Allies  and  the 
threat  of  peace. 

The  U.S.  Government  has  been 
trying  to  get  out  from  under  the 
mountainous  stock  by  means  of 
wool  auctions;  these  have  proved 
partially  successful  in  transfer- 
ring ownership  title  but  not  of 
solving  the  problem  of  surplus. 
Meanwhile  a  great  shortage  of 
woolen  goods  exists  all  over 
North  America. 

The  surplus  of  wheat,  cotton, 
and  corn  in  the  U.S.  is  even  more 
frightening  to  business  and  poli- 
tics than  the  wool  supply.  The 
latest  'emergency  plan'  is  to  pur- 
chase surplus  corn,  cotton,  and 
wheat  on  the  domestic  market 
and  to  sell    the     commodities     a- 


MAY.  19-15 


39 


broad  at  world  prices,  with  the 
U.S.  Treasury  taking  the  loss  on 
the  deals.  It  is  exected  that  such 
deals  will  cost  the  U.S.  more  than 
the  $3  billion  already  set  aside 
for  the  C.C.C.,  or  a  loss  of  about 
30%  on  ail  dumping  of  the  three 
main  agricultural  'problems.' 


More  than  three  thousand  mil- 
lion dollars  taken  from  taxpayer? 
to  be  given  back  to  taxpayers  so 
that  grains  and  cotton  can  be 
dumped  abroad,  and  can  be  kept 
scarce  enough  here  to  keep  the 
price  up! 

— Research  Committee,  12349-1 


A  New  Building  Material 


LONDON. — Using  the  ash  remaining  from  the  burning  of  pulver- 
ized coal  in  power  stations,  British  scientists  announced  that 
they  have  developed  a  building  material  which  they  feel  will  be  ex- 
tremely economical  and  useful  in  the  reconstruction  period  Britain  has 
before  her  after  the  war. 

B.  N.  Mitchell,  director  of  the  Industrial  and  Engineering  Develop- 
ment Association  which  did  the  research  on  the  new  material,  said  the 
government's  department  of  scientific  and  industrial  research  is  now 
testing  the  new  material  for  qualities  of  heat-resistance  and  strength. 

The  composition  developed  from  the  ash  which  had  not  only  been  a 
useless  by-product  of  power  plants  to  date  but  which  has  also  posed  a 
problem  of  disposal  for  the  stations,  is  held  to  be  fireproof.  It  is  said  to 
gain  strength  with  age,  to  be  vermin-proof  and  capable  of  being  plaster- 
ed, papered,  painted,  and  sawn  to  any  shape  desired. 

More  than  800,000,000  bricks  or  nearly  enough  for  an  estimated  10- 
year  postwar  building  program  could  be  produced  from  the  ash  now 
thrown  away  by  power  plants. 

Building  interests  in  America  and  in  Australia  are  reported  inter- 
ested in  the  new  process.  — Vancover  News-Herald 


*  THERE  IS  NO  DOUBT  that  in  the  first  years  after  the  war  the  blacklog  of 
consumer  requirements  (for  housing,  refrigerators  and  such)  coupled  with  the 
necessity  of  sending  goods  for  rehabilitating  the  war  torn  areas,  will  provide  a  market 
f-or  our  manufacturing.  But  after  this  immediate  transition  period  we  may  have 
difficulty  in  finding  markets  for  all  the  produce  of  our  present  industrial  strength. 
War  with  its  destruction  produces  a  constant  market — by  blowing  up  our  production. 
Peace  does  not.  — A  Citizen's  Forum — Of  Things  to  Come 


40 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


WBaM 


Canada's  Iron  Mining  Industry 


A  review  of  recent  important  developments  in  Canada's  iron  mining 
industry.  Under  the  technological  impact  of  Total  War  this  country- 
has   made   tremendous   industrial  strides. 


CANADA'S  iron  mining  in- 
dustry is  expected  to  'come 
into  its  own'  this  year  and  barring 
unforeseen  happenings,  1945  may 
well  prove  the  greatest  yet  from 
the  standpoint  of  iron  ore  produc- 
tion. 

Optimism  is  based  primarily 
upon  the  fact  that  first  really 
large-scale  production  is  expected 
this  year  from  Steep  Rock  Iron 
Mines  and  Michipicoten  Iron 
Mines. 

This  country  has  never  reach- 
ed the  point  of  supplying  the  re- 
quirements of  its  domestic  steel 
industry.  But  a  step  forward  in 
this  direction  is  being  achieved 
this  year  with  these  two  great 
iron  ore  deposits  being  placed  in 
production. 

For  some  years  now  the  major 
steel  companies  in  Canada,  with 
the  exception  of  Algoma  Steel 
Corp.,  have  imported  the  great 
bulk  of  their  iron  ore  require- 
ments. Only  in  1942  did  Domin- 
ion Steel  &  Coal  Corp.  reopen  an 
old  iron  mine  at  Bathurst,  N.B. 
to    meet    emergency    needs,    and 


Reprinted  from  Financial  Post. 
MAY.  1945 


even  this  has  now  been  closed 
down. 

From  this  it  may  readily  be 
seen  that  while  the  output  of 
Steep  Rock  and  Michipicoten 
Iron  Mines  will  not  fill  all  re- 
quirements, it  will  be  most  bene- 
ficial for  the  iron  and  steel  in- 
dustry not  only  now  but  in  the 
postwar  period.  Most  of  the  ore 
will  probably  be  sold  in  the  Uni- 
ted States,  further  strengthening 
our  exchange  position. 

First  large-scale  production 
from  the  deposits  at  Steep  Rock 
Lake,  near  Atikokan,  Ont.,  the 
largest  known  hematite  deposit 
in  Canada,  is  scheduled  for  1945. 
Present  plans  call  for  mining  150,- 
000  to  200,000  tons  of  ore  from 
the  'B'  ore  body  before  the  open- 
ing of  navigation  next  spring. 

During  the  1945  shipping  sea- 
son officials  are  hopeful  of  mov- 
ing over  a  million  tons  of  ore  with 
two  million  tons  planned  for  ship- 
ment each  of  the  years  1946  and 
1947. 

While  some  production — less 
than  25,000  tons — was  taken  from 
the  Steep  Rock  mine  towards  the 
end  of  1944,  operations  were  cur- 


41 


tailed  temporarily  due  to  a  slide 
of  gelatinous  ooze  in  the  drained 
portion  of  the  bed  of  Steep  Rock 
Lake.  However,  progress  is  be- 
ing made  in  removing  the  slime 
from  the  locale  of  the  original 
open  cut  operation  and  within  a 
few  months  mining  operations 
should  be  on  an  all-out  basis. 

Over  $10  million  have  been  ex- 
pended to  make  the  output  of 
Steep  Rock  available  to  steel  in- 
dustries of  the  United  States  and 
Canada.  This  program  involved 
the  major  task  of  diverting  the 
Seine  River  to  a  new  westerly 
course  and  pumping  out  of  Steep 
Rock  Lake.  Dockage  facilities 
have  been  erected  at  Port  Arthur 
and  will  be  in  use  this  spring, 
while  a  spur  line  has  been  con- 
structed from  the  mine  to  the 
C.N.R.  line  at  Atikokan. 

Since  the  'B'  ore  body  is  the 
most  accessible  and  lends  itself  to 
open  pit  operations,  first  mining 
will  be  of  ore  from  this  deposit. 
Ore  reserves  here  are  estimated 
at  some  20  million  tons  of  high- 
grade  iron.  The  bulk  of  this  will 
be  available  to  open  pit  mining. 
The  'A'  zone  is  indicated  as  hav- 
ing some  11  million  tons  of  ore, 
with  the  'C  body  in  the  East 
Bay  area  likely  to  remain  as  a 
reserve  for  the  future. 

Most  of  the  ore  produced  by 
Steep  Rock  will  be  shipped  to 
steel  mills  in  the  United  States. 


This  is  part  of  a  deal  completed 
with  the  U.S.  Government  who 
provided  a  $5,000,000  loan  to  de- 
velop the  property.  The  ore  ex- 
ported in  1944  measured  fully  up 
to  expectations  and  sale  has  been 
assured  at  favorable  prices  of  all 
ore  that  can  be  produced  in  1945. 

The  second  new  mine  scheduled 
to  inaugurate  production  this 
year  is  the  Josephine  mine  of 
Michipicoten  Iron  Mines,  owned 
jointly  by  Sherritt  Gordon  and 
Frobisher  Exploration  Co.,  the 
latter  a  subsidiary  of  Ventures 
Ltd.  Decision  to  equip  this  prop- 
erty for  production  was  made  late 
last  fall.  Plans  call  for  the  mine 
to  be  ready  to  produce  by  the 
start  of  the  1945  shipping  season. 
It  is  expected  that  the  ore  will  be 
handled  in  the  steel  plant  of  Al- 
goma  Steel  Corp.  at  Sault  Ste. 
Marie. 

In  addition  to  the  Josephine 
mine,  which  has  been  developed 
from  a  shaft  sunk  over  1,000  ft., 
Michipicoten  Iron  Mines  owns  the 
adjacent  Ruth  property  which  has 
not  been  explored  underground 
but  which  from  drilling,  is  known 
to  possess  a  great  tonnage  of  sid- 
erite  iron  ore.  A  third  property, 
the  Lucy,  is  yet  to  be  tested  but 
shows  siderite  iron  ore  similar 
to  the  Ruth. 

In  May,  1944,  total  reserves  of 
hematite  and  siderite  ore  at  the 
Josephine    and    Ruth    properties 


42 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


Ifcaft 


If 

HHHm 
H 


■mK&KInkmI 


were  estimated  at  31.8  million 
tons  grading  approximately  31% 
iron.  The  deposit  on  the  former 
contains  an  estimated  3.2  million 
tons  averaging  53.94 %  iron,  while 
the  Ruth  reserves  are  28.6  million 
tons,  including  16.8  million  tons 
of  low  silica  siderite  averaging 
34.54%  iron  and  11.7  million  tons 
of  high  silica  siderite,  averaging 
26.57%    iron  and  21.46%  silica. 

Sintering  tests  have  demon- 
strated that  ore  sinters  of  excel- 
lent quality  can  be  produced  from 
Josephine  hematite,  from  Ruth 
low  silica  siderite,  as  well  as  from 
various   mixtures  of  the  two. 

Another  potential  source  of 
iron  in  the  raw  state — and  one 
which  rates  as  one  of  the  most 
important  deposits  developed  in 
any  iron  range  in  Canada — is  the 
Goulais  River  deposit  of  Algoma 
Ore  Properties,  wholly-owned 
subsidiary  of  Algoma  Steel  Corp. 
This  subsidiary,  which  owns 
numerous  mining  claims  in  the 
Algoma  district,  Northern  Ont- 
ario, has  conducted  many  thou- 
sand feet  of  diamond  drilling 
since  1940  on  the  Goulais  prop- 
erty. This  work  has  indicated 
upwards  of  100  million  tons  of 
magnetite  concentrating  ore.  It 
has  been  estimated  that  a  concen- 
trate with  a  65%  iron  content  can 
be  turned  out  from  the  Goulais 
ore. 

The  deposit  lies  about  12  miles 


east  of  the  Algoma  Central  & 
Hudson  Bay  Railroad  and  some 
50  miles  north  east  of  Sault  Ste. 
Marie,  site  of  the  parent  com- 
pany's steel  plant.  The  ore  body 
has  been  cut  in  drilling  to  a  depth 
of  2,200  ft.  where  the  width  and 
grade  is  reported  to  be  of  a  better 
average  than  the  ore  nearer  the 
surface. 

While  no  specific  proposal  has 
been  arranged  for  placing  this 
property  in  production,  it  appears 
quite  possible  that  Algoma  Steel 
Corp.  may  'repeat'  with  Goulais 
River  its  experience  with  its  new 
Helen  deposit. 

The  Helen  deposit  of  Algoma 
Steel,  Ontario's  major  iron  mine, 
has  long  been  known  as  one  of 
the  largest  bodies  of  iron  ore  in 
Canada,  consisting  almost  entire- 
ly of  siderite.  The  ore  as  ex- 
tracted has  a  35%  iron  content 
and  requires  benefication  to  in- 
crease the  iron  content  to  around 
51%  .  The  ore  is  processed  in  a 
plant  which  has  a  capacity  of  over 
450,000  tons  annually. 

During  1944,  Algoma  Ore  Prop- 
erties produced  and  shipped  473,- 
744  tons  of  sinter,  compared  with 
414,602  tons  in  1943.  The  sinter 
is  sold  for  use  in  U.S.  and  Cana- 
dian furnaces  and  continues  to 
give  satisfaction. 

Throughout  Canada,  investiga- 
tions have  been  proceeding  for  a 
period  of  years  for  the  discovery 


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of  iron,  ore  deposits.  At  least 
100  places  in  Ontario  have  been 
spotted  as  bearing  iron  ore  occur- 
rances  of  varying  grade.  For 
years  the  Iron  Mountain  prop- 
erty near  Sudbury  has  been 
known,  but  its  remote  location 
and  reported  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  economic  concentration 
have  apparently  left  this  property 
in  the  throes  of  forgotten  things 
recently.  However,  the  property 
offers  possibilities  for  turning  out 
large  tonnages  of  iron  sinter  when 
the  shortage  of  high  grade  iron 
ore  becomes  more  acute. 

Sherritt  Gordon  and  Frobisher 
Exploration  have  partially  outlin- 
ed a  deposit  of  manganese-bearing 
hematite  at  Strawhat  Lake  near 
Steep  Rock,  but  it  is  thought  that 
considerably  more  work  will  be 
necessary  before  production  plans 
could  be  entertained. 

Large  iron  ore  deposits  are 
known  to  exist  on  the  Belcher 
Islands  in  Hudson  Bay,  but  they 
are  relatively  inaccessible. 

Labrador  Mining  and  Explora- 
tion Co.,  controlled  by  Hollinger 
Consolidated,  has  discovered  sev- 
eral large  high-grade  hematite 
iron  deposits  on  its  extensive  tract 
of  land  in  Labrador,  held  under 
a  concession  from  the  Newfound- 
land Government. 

The  Sawyer  Lake  deposit  is 
perhaps  the  most  important  of 
these  with  a  large  portion  of  the 


work  conducted  there.  The  mag- 
nitude of  the  deposit  has  not  yet 
been  determined  but  early  sur- 
face work  indicated  a  total  of 
32,000  tons  of  ore  per  foot  of 
depth  with  grade  estimated  to 
average  65.5%  iron. 

Drilling  has  been  conducted 
during  1943  and  1944  and  while 
results  are  not  known,  it  is  re- 
ported that  one  drill  hole  return- 
ed an  average  of  68  %  iron  for  the 
200  ft.  of  depth  probed.  Other 
holes  are  said  to  have  yielded 
similar  high  grade  results.  The 
other  deposits  also  indicate  a 
large  tonnage  of  high-grade  ore, 
but  officials  have  not  yet  released 
details  as  to  potential  grade  and 
tonnage. 

Proximity  of  waterpower  de- 
velopment at  the  Grand  Falls  on 
the  Hamilton  River  gives  it  im- 
portant status.  However,  diffi- 
culties are  presented  in  getting 
out  the  ore  with  construction  of 
a  railway  said  to  be  necessary 
to  ship  it  to  the  St.  Lawrence 
River. 

The  Wabana  mines  on  Bell 
Island,  Newfoundland,  which 
have  huge  reserves  of  high-grade 
iron,  are  the  chief  source  of  iron 
ore  for  Dominion  Steel  and  Coal 
Corp.  Due  to  shipping  conditions 
the  mines  are  not  operating  at 
full  capacity.  In  1944,  high  grade 
Brazilian  ore  was  added  to 
'sweeten'  the  Newfoundland  pro- 


44 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


9rS 


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■ 


duct   and  thus  permit  more  effi- 
cient operations. 

In  Western  Canada,  there  are 
a  considerable  number  of  deposits 
both  on  Vancouver  Island  and  on 
the  mainland  of  British  Colum- 
bia. Privateer  Mine,  which  until 
Nov.  1943,  operated  a  gold  mine 
in  the  Zeballos  area,  Vancouver 
Island,  is  investigating  the  possi- 
bilities of  establishing  an  iron  and 


steel  industry  on  the  west  coast 
through  Zeballos  Iron  and  Steel 
Co.  Privateer  owns  iron  claims 
in  the  Zeballos  valley  on  which  a 
considerable  deposit  of  high- 
grade  magnetite  ore  occurs  and 
directors  have  been  given  neces- 
sary authority  to  carry  on  a  study 
of  the  project  and  to  bring  it  to 
production    if   results    warrant 


Victors  for  Their  Stockholders 


*  ONE  CANNOT  MOVE  about  in  Washington,  without  bumping 
into  the  fact  that  we  are  running  two  wars — a  foreign  war  and  a 
domestic  war.  The  domestic  war  front  is  in  the  various  war  boards. 
Every  great  commodity  industry  in  this  country  is  organized  nationally 
and  many  of  them,  perhaps  most  of  them,  are  parts  of  great  national 
organizations,  cartels,  agreements,  which  function  on  both  sides  of  the 
battlefront.  Here  in  Washington  every  industry  is  interested  in  saving 
its  own  self.  It  wants  to  come  out  of  the  war  with  a  whole  hide  and 
with  its  organization  unimpaired  legally  or  illegally. 

One  is  surprised  to  find  men  representing  great  commodity  trusts 
or  agreements  or  syndicates  planted  in  the  various  war  boards.  It 
is  silly  to  say  New  Dealers  run  this  show.  It's  largely  run  by  ab- 
sentee owners  of  amalgamated  wealth  ....  for  the  most  part  these 
managerial  magnates  are  decent,  patriotic  Americans.  They  have 
great  talents.  If  you  touch  them  in  nine  relations  out  of  ten  they  are 
kindly,  courteous,  Christian  gentlemen.  But  in  the  tenth  relation, 
where  it  touches  their  own  organization,  they  are  stark  mad,  ruthless, 
unchecked  by  God  or  man,  paranoiacs,  in  fact,  as  evil  in  their  design 
as  Hitler. 

They  are  determined  to  come  out  of  this  war  victors  for  their 
own  stockholders — which  is  not  surprising  ....  These  international 
combinations  of  industrial  capital  are  fierce  troglodyte  animals  with 
tremendous  power  and  no  social  brains.  They  hover  like  an  old 
silurian  reptile  about  our  decent,  more  or  less  Christian  civilization — 
like  dragons  in  this  modern  day  when  dragons  are  supposed  to  be 
dead.  — William  Allen  White 


mm 


MAY.   1945 


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■ 

Notes  on  Organization 


The  efforts  of  Technocracy  Inc.  are  directed  towards  the  installation 
of  a  new  social  mechanism  not  at  the  mitigation  of  its  many  ulcerous 
parts.  The  injection  of  any  obstructing  influences  cannot  be  toler- 
ated. 


IN  BRINGING  the  principles  of 
Technocracy  before  the  citizens 
of  this  Continent,  a  technique  of 
approach  has  been  necessitated 
which  differs  greatly  from  that 
of  any  political  organization 
which  seeks  to  enlist  public  sup- 
port. The  reason  can  be  made 
clear:  the  average  citizen  has  so 
long  been  subjected  to  the 
smoothly  phrased,  apparently  sin- 
cere, oratorical  and  emotional 
flights  of  soothing  nonsense  de- 
livered by  politicians  that  he  has 
become  apathetic  and  unable  to 
reason  things  out  clearly  for  him- 
self. If  Technocracy  is  to  receive 
from  all  citizens  the  attention  it 
merits,  then  it  must  blast  its  way 
into  the  consciousness  of  thoso 
citizens  in  order  to  jar  loose  their 
mental  machinery  which  has 
bogged  down  in  a  sea  of  adroit 
words  and  catch  phrases. 

The  political  governments  of  the 
United  States  and  Canada  are  part  and 
parcel  of  the  Price  System  of  this  Con- 
tinent. They  are  the  purveyors  of  scar- 
city, the  merchandisers  of  national  debt, 
and  the  sowers  of  National  dissolution. 
They  are  the  ballyhooers  of  public  con- 
fidence and  the  salesmen  of  sucker  bait 
to    their    citizens.      The    political    govern- 


ments  of   the   United   States   and  Canada 
are  the   institutional  blockades  to   social 

progress. 

But  this  Continent  has  a  rendezvous 
with  destiny  and  in  that  destiny  lies  the 
future  of  civilization.  That  destiny  will 
not  tolerate  the  politician  and  poverty, 
the  economic  pestilence  of  this  Price 
System.  This  Continent  has  no  choice 
but  to  lead  the  march  of  civilization. 
The  opportunity  is  given  to  no  other 
Continent.  The  twentieth  century  be- 
longs to  North  America.  This  Contin- 
ent's rendezvous  with  destiny,  its  task,  is 
the  elimination  of  human  toil  and  the 
installation  of  security  and  abundance. 
This  Continent  will  have  its  rendezvous 
with  destiny  within  the  next  few  years 
and  upon  this  generation  of  North 
Americans  will  fall  the  competent  and 
orderly  achievement  of  a  new  civiliza- 
tion. This  generation  of  North  Ameri- 
cans has  the  men,  the  materials,  and 
the  machinery  for  its  accomplishment. 

Technocracy  Inc.  charges  the  political 
administrations,  the  corporate  enter- 
prises, and  the  debt  merchants  of  the 
United  States  and  Canada  with  being 
in  possession  of  the  data  and  physical 
facts  of  the  technological  progression  of 
this   Continental   Area. 

Technocracy  Inc.  charges  these  domin- 
ant interests  with  wilful  supression  and 
distortion  of  the  facts. 

Technocracy  Inc.  charges  these  domin- 
ant interests  with  being  guilty  of  a  de- 
liberate   conspiracy    to    deceive    and ,  de- 


46 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


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.  .    . 

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BBBflSffi 

fraud  this  generation  of  North  Ameri- 
cans and  their  children  hy  blockading 
social  progress  in  the  hope  of  preventing 
the   arrival   of   the   New   America. 

Technocracy  Inc.  predicts  that  destiny 
shall  declare  the  Price  System  'no  dice,' 
and  without  anger  or  malice  issues  fair 
wartiing  to  these  dominant  interests 
that,  if  they  persist  in  maintaining  this 
conspiracy  in  the  face  of  the  techno- 
logical march  of  events,  this  generation 
of  North  Americans  will  at  that  rendez- 
vous with  destiny  adjudge  them  to  be 
guilty  of  Continental  treason.  Then 
may   God    have   mercy   on   their   souls ! 

This,  then,  is  a  'hard-boiled'  ap- 
proach. Nothing  else  will  serve 
to  hammer  through  the  layers  of 
'soft  soap'  which  the  politicians 
wrap  around  the  people  they  con- 
tinue so  successfully  to  mislead. 
If  the  sensibilities  of  the  timorous 
recoil  before  the  onslaught  of 
naked  truth  and  scientific  fact,  it 
is  because  they  have  been  lulled 
into  a  feeling  of  hopeful  security 
which  simply  does  not  exist,  and 
the  sooner  Technocracy  can 
knock  aside  the  carefully  erected 
screen  of  political  and  economic 
make-believe,  the  sooner  will  the 
citizens  be  able  to  arrive  at  their 
own  decisions  as  to  their  future 
and  that  of  their  land. 

Inherent  in  the  governments  of  all 
Price  Systems  is  the  basic  proposition 
that  any  decision  may  be  arrived  at,  any 
problem  may  be  solved,  by  resolving  the 
conflicting  opinions  of  individual  citi- 
zens into  a  common  consensus,  regard- 
less of  whether  this  consensus  of  opin- 
ion   is   obtained      by      democratic    ballot, 

MAY.  1915 


autocratic  edict,  or  revolutionary  fiat. 
This  basic  proposition  of  all  political 
administrative  control  sufficed  so  long 
as  man  was  the  chief  provider  of  power 
in  the  performance  of  all  necessary  work 
within  the  social  state  because,  so  long 
as  such  conditions  maintained,  there  was 
no  other  means  of  providing  energy  ex- 
cept that  converted  by  man  from  his  re- 
quired food,  air,  water,  and  solar  radia- 
tion and,  therefore,  no  knowledge  ex- 
isted in  the  collective  sense  sufficient 
to  incur  any  change  whatsoever  in  the 
basic  operation  conducted  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  political  government.  It 
follows  quite  naturally  that  opinion  was 
the  sole  thing  of  which  there  could  be 
any   consensus. 

Regardless  of  whether  the  dominant 
motif  of  any  Price  System  government 
has  been  that  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings,  class  feudalism,  or  democratic 
political  liberty,  there  has  been  inherent 
in  all  of  them  the  grandiose  nonsense 
that  the  collective  multiplication  of 
human  opinion  was  the  nearest  possible 
approach  to  divine  omniscience  in  the 
solution  of  all  political  problems.  There- 
fore, the  chief  problem  of  previous 
governments  has  been  the  more  or  less 
efficient  ordering  of  the  disposition  of 
human  effort  so  as  to  provide  the  neces- 
sities and  possible  luxuries  for  their 
citizens,  divided  socially  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  enhance  supporting  opinion 
and   to  subdue  and  pacify  the  majority. 

The  governments  of  all  previous  scar- 
city economies  were  compelled  to  act 
in  this  manner  by  the  very  nature  of 
their  insufficiency  techniques.  The  more 
primitive  the  scarcity  economy  and  the 
less  fortuitous  in  its  possession  of  natural 
resources,  the  greater  was  the  social 
differential  betwen  the  two  extremes 
and  the  more  closely  related  were  the 
functional     capacities     of     their     citizens. 


47 


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So  correct  is  this  statement  of  social 
conditions  that  both  Plato  and  Confu- 
cious  would  have  found  no  difficulty 
in  adjusting  themselves  to  the  social  en- 
vironment and  customs  and  the  theory  of 
government  in  the  days  of  George  Wash- 
ington and  '1776.'  They  would  have 
found  a  compatibility  of  ideas  and  tra- 
ditions with  those  revered  Founding 
Fathers   of   ours. 

The  efforts  of  our  Organization 
are  directed  towards  the  installa- 
tion of  a  new  social  mechanism 
not  at  the  mitigation  of  the  effects 
of  the  many  ulcerous  parts  of  the 
decaying  Price  System.  The  basic 
concept  of  a  scientific  society  is 
too  big  and  too  complex,  and  there 
remains  too  much  to  be  done  for 
its  accomplishment,  to  warrant 
discussion  of  any  minor  issues 
and  a  constant  diffusion  of  ener- 
gies which  should  be  concentrated 
on  the  final  goal.  Organizing  and 
successfully  operating  a  new 
social  structure  will  require  the 
co-operation  of  all  classes  and  all 
religions.  The  injection  of  any 
obstructing  influences  cannot  be 
tolerated. 

The  human  mind  can  reflect  two  areas 
or  levels   of  human   existence. 

It  reflects  the  external  world  of 
material  environment,  that  world  to 
which  the  living  human  organism,  in- 
dividual or  collective,  must  adapt  itself 
in  order  to  survive.  If  the  mind  is  train- 
ed to  reflect  the  external  world  accurate- 
ly, in  the  objective  sense,  adaptation  to 
environment    is    likely   to    be    successful. 

It  also  reflects  the  human  subjective 
existence — that      world      of      sensibility, 


aesthetic  feeling,  desire,  spiritual  con- 
science. The  extent  to  which  this  area 
of  experience  is  conditioned  by  physical 
factors  is  a  study  in  itself,  the  import- 
ance of  which  is  not  belittled;  but  ob- 
viously the  subjective  has  no  essential 
bearing  upon  the  study  or  the  task  of 
Technocracy,  which  concerns  itself  sole- 
ly with  the  material  environment  of  man 
— the  world  of  measurable  phenomena — 
the   problem    of   physical   adaptation. 

The  aesthetic  feelings,  the  spiritual  be- 
liefs of  men  do  not  lie  within  the  realm 
of  measurable  things  and  events.  Art- 
icles of  spiritual  belief  or  personal  taste 
can  neither  be  affirmed  nor  denied  by 
recourse  to  any  scientific  procedure. 
They  are  purely  the  affair  of  the  indivi- 
dual and  in  no  way  subject  to  Techno- 
cratic inquiry.  The  converse  of  this, 
however,  is  emphasized!  It  is  totally 
erroneous  to  decide  as  a  matter  of  opin- 
ion that  which  can  be  determined  as  a 
matter   of   fact. 

As  the  breakdown  of  our  pre- 
sent inadequate  system  ap- 
proaches, a  whole  series  of  new 
political  organizations  are  being 
launched,  each  one  with  the  hope 
that  its  particular  political  and 
economic  nostrums  can  be  sold  to 
the  distressed  citizens  as  a  cure- 
all.  One  danger  common  to 
several  of  these  must  be  pointed 
out  and  stressed  by  Technocracy 
Inc.  So  widespread  have  become 
certain  Technocratic  principles 
that  some  political  organizations 
are  borrowing  them  for  their  own 
uses. 

There  is  great  danger  that 
many  people  will  become  con- 
fused and,  in  the  erroneous  belief 


48 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


that  they  can  gain  the  benefits 
of  a  Technocratic  system  by  vot- 
ing in  a  political  party,  will  join 
these  political  organizations  with- 
out further  analysis  of  the  facts 
involved.  Let  every  citizen  who 
now  accepts  Technocracy's  prin- 
ciples, or  who  will  one  day  do 
so,  pin  this  statement  firmly  in 
his  mind:  political  administration, 
Price  System  economics,  and 
Technocracy  could  not  by  the 
combined  skill  and  ingenuity  of 
all  the  world's  great  thinkers, 
past,  present,  and  future,  be  com- 
bined into  a  single,  harmonious, 
workable  social  mechanism. 

Egypt,  Assyria,  Greece,  Rome,  and 
Imperial  Britain  have  all  led  the  world 
in  their  day;  each  in  turn  has  been 
the  vanguard  of  civilization.  The  past 
is  strewn  with  ruins  of  empire.  Now 
there  is  but  one  Continental  area  that 
from  the  standpoint  of  its  geologic  set- 
up, equipment,  personnel,  and  the  state 
of  its  technology,  is  competent  and 
ready  to  inaugurate  a  new  era  in  the 
life  of  man. 

North  America  stands  on  the  thresh- 
old of  that  new  era,  but  she  will  have 
to  leave  behind  all  the  wish-fulfilling 
thought  and  romantic  concepts  ef  value 
that  are  the  concomitants  of  a  Price 
System.  So,  too,  all  philosophic  ap- 
proaches to  social  phenomena,  from 
Plato  to — and  including — Marx,  must 
functionally  be  avoided.  Economics,  that 
pathology  of  debt,  not  containing  within 
itself  any  modulus  or  calculus  of  design 
or  operation,  must  likewise  be  discarded 
with  the  other  historical  antiquities.  No 
political  method  of  arriving  at  social  de- 

MAY,  1945 


cisions  is  adequate  in  Continental  areas 
under  technological  control,  for  the  scien- 
tific technique  of  decision  arrivation  has 
no    political   antecedents. 

All  those  who  have  the  slight- 
est part  of  national  responsiblity 
are  afraid  of  the  postwar.  'Like 
a  leaf  floating  downstream,  we 
are  being  carried  along  toward  a 
new  and  uncharted  economy,' 
says  James  H.  McGraw,  Jr. 
Every  daily  newspaper  carries  re- 
marks similar  to  this,  all  express- 
ing a  fear  for  the  future  of  'free 
enterprise.'  Technocracy  does 
not  share  in  this  fear.  We  have 
no  qualms  about  the  fate  of  that 
sacred  cow.  'Free  enterprise' 
means  freedom  to  chisel,  free- 
dom to  profit,  freedom  to  main- 
tain artificial  scarcity,  freedom  to 
operate  for  private  benefit  against 
the  public  welfare,  freedom  to 
have  poverty,  slums,  crime, 
waste,  and  malnutrition,  ad  nau- 
seum.  We  know  that  this  Con- 
tinent can  be  operated  without 
the  kind  of  'free  enterprise'  re- 
presented by  the  National  Asso- 
ciation of  Manufacturers  and  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce. 

Not  one  single  person,  agency, 
or  corporation  has  had  the  cour- 
age to  make  the  affirmative  state- 
ment that  this  Continent  is  facing 
inevitable  social  change  and  that 
we  must  prepare  for  it,  not 
fight.  Technocracy,  alone,  in 
presenting   its   program   of   Total 


49 


■  ■ 

■  WsSZ 


Conscription  has  recognized  that 
social  change  is  inevitable.  Total 
Conscription  is  the  only  program 
which  is  commensurate 
with  the  sweeping  revolutionary 
social  changes  which  have  taken 
place.     Total   Conscription    itself 


is  a  recognition  of  social  change. 
It  is  an  acknowledgement  that 
this  Continent  must  prepare  to 
change  its  methods  of  operation, 
and  is  therefore  radically  oppo- 
site to  all  of  the  plans  for  con- 
tinuing the  status  quo. 


if  IN  FIVE  YEARS  OF  WAR  Canadian  manufacturing  has  grown  as  much  as  in 
twenty-five  normal  years  and  the  working  force  has  doubled.  In  1939  out  of  a 
total  of  3.6  million  men  and  women  gainfully  employed,  manufacturing  firms  pro- 
vided work  for  about  600,000  persons.  Today  the  corresponding  totals  are  more 
than  5  million  in  the  armed  forces  or  in  civilian  occupations  and  1.2  million  at  work 
in  factories.  This  increase  in  the  number  of  gainfully  employed  persons  is  the 
gap  then  which  must  be  closed  if  we  are  to  have  full  employment.  Allowance  should 
of  course  be  made  for  those  who  will  not  wish  to  work  beyond  the  emergency,  for 
war  casualties  and  for  a  substantial  increase  in  our  peacetime  military  establish- 
ment. Even  then  no  one  places  the  number  of  postwar  jobs  which  must  be  found 
at  less  than  4.5  million  and  some  estimates  are  much  higher. 

This  means  at  least  a  million  more  jobs  than  the  3.6  million  that  existed  when 
the  war  began.  — A   Citizen's   Forum — Of   Things  to  Come 

*  A  DECISION  OF  THE  AUSTRALIAN  PARLIAMENT  to  establish,  with  public 
funds,  a  small  aluminum  industry  in  that  country  has  received  almost  no  notice  in 
Canada.  The  official  record  of  the  debate  on  this  project,  taking  place  in  Canberra 
last  November,  reveals  that  the  chief  motive  is  the  security  of  Australia,  not  for  the 
present— since  the  industry  cannot  be  started  in  less  than  two  years — but  for  the 
future.  Compared  with  Canada's  war-stimulated  aluminum  industry  which  now  has  a 
capacity  of  500,000  metric  tons  per  annum,  the  proposed  Australian  industry  will 
have  a  capacity  of  10,000  tons.  The  Curtin  government's  estimate  is  that  Australia 
will  consume  about  6,000  tons  of  aluminum  a  year  in  future  compared  with  require- 
ment of   one-fifth   of  that  amount  in   pre-war  years. 

Since  the  Canadian  Government  is  understood  to  have  offered  Australia  as  large  a 
stockpile  as  it  requires,  to  be  delivered  out  of  the  excess  production  available  in 
Canada,  the  Australian  decision  represents  the  first  definite  loss  of  a  potential  post- 
war export  market  for  a  product  in  which  Canadian  costs  of  production  are  lower 
than  the  rest  of  the  world.  — B.  T.  Richardson  in  Calgary  Albertan 

if  IF  FREE  ENTERPRISE  means  the  freedom  to  neglect  the  possibilities  of  science 
and  technology  it  is  the  clear  duty  of  the  government  to  assert  itself.  And  this  holds 
good  for  research  as  it  is  conducted  by  the  great  foundations  and  the  universities 
and  even  the  State  and  Federal  governments,  all  of  which  attack  problems  piecemeal 
and  follow  plans  which  are  much  too  small.  There  is  no  systematic  attack  on  funda- 
mentals. Everything  is  left  to  chance — the  chance  that  some  able  investigator  will 
be  stirred  into  action  and  that  he  will  somehow  manage  to  raise  the  money  that 
he  needs  to  make  his  inquiries. 

— Waldemar  Kaempffert,  science  editor  of  Neiv  York  Times 


50 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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TECHNOCRACY 


WHAT? 

Technocracy  is  science  in  the  social 
field.  Encyclopedia  Americana  says: 
'Whatever  the  future  of  Technocracy, 
one  must  fairly  say  that  it  is  the 
only  program  of  social  and  economic 
reconstruction  which  is  in  complete 
intellectual  and  technical  accord  with 
the  age  in  which  we  live.' 

WHEN? 

Technocracy  originated  in  the  winter 
of  1918-1919  when  Howard  Scott 
formed  a  group  of  scientists,  engin- 
eers, and  economists  that  became 
known  in  1920  as  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance— a  research  organization.  Some 
of  the  better  known  names  in  the 
Technical  Alliance  are  of  interest, 
such  as:  Frederick  L.  Ackerman,  ar- 
chitect; L.  K.  Comstock,  electrical 
engineer;  Stuart  Chase,  C.P.A.  (now 
well-known  writer);  Bassett  Jones, 
electrical  engineer;  Leland  Olds, 
statistician  (now  Federal  Power 
Commissioner);  Benton  Mackaye 
(now  in  the  Forestry  Department); 
Charles  P.  Steinmetz  and  Thorstein 
Veblen  (both  now  dead).  Howard 
Scott  was  Chief  Engineer.  In  1930 
the  group  was  first  known  as  Tech- 
nocracy. In  1933  it  was  incorporated 
under  the  laws  of  the  state  of  New 
York  as  a  non-profit,  non-political, 
non-sectarian  membership  organiza- 
tion. In  1934  Howard  Scott,  Direct- 
or-in-Chief,  made  his  first  Continent- 
al lecture  tour  which  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  present  Continental 
membership  organization.  Since  1934 
Technocracy  has  grown  steadily  with- 
out any  spectacular  spurts,  revivals, 
collapses,  or  rebirths.  This  is  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  press  has 
generally  'held  the  lid'  on  Technoc- 
racy, until  early  in  1942  when  it 
made  the  tremendous  'discovery'  that 
Technocracy  had  been  reborn  sudden- 
ly, full-fledged  with  all  its  members, 
headquarters,   etc.,   in    full    swing! 


WHY? 

Technocracy's  survey  of  the  econo- 
mic situation  in  North  America  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  de- 
velopment a  process  of  progressive 
social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instability 
reaches  the  limits  of  social  tolerance 
and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be 
installed  on  this  Continent  a  social 
mechanism  competent  to  meet  the 
needs  of  its  people.  Technocracy 
finds  further  that  the  day  when 
social  operations  on  this  Continent 
can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now 
necessary  that  there  be  applied  in 
the  social  field  the  quantitative 
methods  of  physical  science.  Tech- 
nocracy, therefore,  proposes  that  the 
North  American  Continent  be  operat- 
ed as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This 
control  would  operate  the  area  under 
a  balanced-load  system  of  production 
and  distribution,  whereunder  there 
would  be  distributed  purchasing 
power  commensurate  with  the  re- 
sources and  the  continuous  full-load 
operation  of  the  physical  equipment, 
with  the  guarantee  of  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living,  equality  of  income,  and 
economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of 
working  hours,  to  every  adult  in- 
habitant. 

HOW? 

At  this  stage  the  objectives  of  Tech- 
nocracy are  first,  the  education  of 
the  people  of  North  America  to  a 
realization  of  the  conditions  behind 
the  social  crisis,  and  second,  the  or- 
ganization of  all  those  willing  to  in- 
vestigate and  interest  themselves  in- 
to an  informed,  disciplined,  and  func- 
tionally capable  body  whose  know- 
ledge and  ability  can  be  called  upon 
to  prevent  chaos  in  North  America 
at  that  time,  now  imminent,  when 
the  Price  System  can  no  longer  be 
made  to  operate. 


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9 


The  Newest  Thing  on  Earth 


FOR  the  long  pull,  however,  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  social  planning  on  a 
national  basis  and  for  a  long  term  of  years,  complete,  drastic,  fearless.  Because 
such  planning  has  to  do  with  work  and  not  money,  with  balance  of  consumption 
and  production,  it  will  never  be  done  by  politicians  and  bankers.  Because  it  is  a 
strictly  technological  job  it  can  be  done  only  by  engineers. 

The  social  scheme  these  engineers  may  offer  will  borrow  little  or  nothing  from 
other  times  or  other  lands.  It  will  grow  out  of  our  own  American  soil — literally  so, 
for  its  base   will   be   conditions   created   by   our  natural   resources. 

It  will  rely  upon  continental  self  sufficiency.  It  will  discard  all  theories  of 
foreign  trade,  tariffs,  international  exchange,  imperialism.  It  will  be  a  new  national- 
ism. It  will  abolish  unemployment  and  provide  universal  security.  It  will  shorten 
the  hours  and  years  of  toil  and  at  the  same  time  lift  higher  yet  the  standard  of  living. 

Such  is  the  promise  of  what  Howard  Scott  calls  'Technocracy'  as  distinguished 
from  autocracy  and  democracy.  It's  the  newest  thing  on  earth.  It  is  hard  boiled 
and  is  offered  on  a  take-it-or-leave-it  basis.  And  it  sounds  to  us  like  the  only 
revolution  worth  talking  about,  the  only  kind  that  holds  any  hope  of  success  on  this 
American  Continent,  because  it  is  the  only  logical  expression  of  the  peculiar  genius 
and  the  special  endowment  of  America. 

— Richard  J.  Walsh,  president  of  the  John  Day  Publishing  Company 
(Section  Stamp) 


Sect'on    1     R    _ 

'RD   aw*.       '         '  NO. 


'06  A   -»o 


Sask. 


JUNE 


V<U<T 


PUBLISHED  IN  CANADA  BY  SEC.  1  -  R.  D.  12349 

TECHNOCRACY     INC. 


25c 


ra 


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I 
to 


TECHNOCRACY 

DICE5T 

THE  ONLY  MAGAZINE  IN  CANADA  THAT  IS  PREPARING  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THIS 
COUNTRY  FOR  SOCIAL  CHANGE 


JUNE,  1945 


VANCOUVER,  B.  C. 


No.  84 


—STAFF- 


DONALD   Bruce   Editor 

W.  D.  Ellwyn  Assistant  Editor 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Assistant  Editor 

Rupert  N.  Urquhart  ....  Assistant  Editor 


M.  C.  McKay  Business  Manager 

G.  H.  Connor  Circulation  Manager 

V.  A.   Knudsen   Research 

H.  W.  Carpenter  Production 


Why  Do  You  Vote? 3 

There'll  Always  Be  an  England' 4 

The  Age  of  Alchemy  11 

Canadian  Power  Development 19 

The  Story  of  Canadian  Wheat ....  23 

King  of   Chemicals 27 

Silver  Self-Sterilizing  Surfaces  - 30 

The  Case  for  Copper 40 

A  Question  Answered 48 

Notes  on  Organization 49 


Technocracy  Digest  is  published  monthly  by  Section  1,  R.  D.  12349,  Techno- 
cracy Inc.,  Vancouver,  B.  C.  Single  copies  25  cents.  Twelve  issues  for  $2.50; 
six  issues  for  $1.25.  Bundle  rates  10  to  100,  20  cents  per  copy;  100  copies  or 
more,  19  cents  each.  Continental  Headquarters  of  Technocracy  Inc.  is  at  155 
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Ottawa.     Printed  in  Canada. 

ATLAS    f!»iSiif88sii>     PRINTERS 


FRONT  COVER 

Under  the  technological  impact  of  total  war,  Canada  built  the  mighty  Shipshaw  pro- 
ject in  record  time.  In  the  postwar  period  let  us  resolve  to  utilize  all  our  hydro- 
electric power  sites.  We  have  44  million  h.p.  of  easily  available  energy  still  untapped 
(see  article  on  page   19).  (National   Film   Board* 


'-'•'■     mi! 


Why  Do  Yon  Vote? 


Today  is  the  Power  Age — an  age  that  demands  scientific  precision 
control  of  all  economic  processes.  In  spite  of  this,  Canadians  are 
still  trying  to  operate  under  social  institutions  that  have  been  handed 
down  from  an   ox-cart  civilization. 


THIS  month  the  citizens  of 
Canada  will  cast  their  ballots 
in  a  Dominion  election.  Here  are 
some  questions  that  the  people 
of  this  country  should  ask  them- 
selves as  they  go  to  the  polls: 

Are  any  fundamental  issues  be- 
ing voted  on — the  kind  that  will 
drastically  affect  the  social  wel- 
fare of  the  individual  citizen? 

Which — if  any — of  the  parties 
has  a  concrete  program  that  will 
ensure  economic  security  for  all 
in  the  postwar  period? 

Does  the  act  of  casting  a  ballot 
provide  much  real  freedom 
to  the  individual  citizen  today? 

Can  we  have  freedom  without 
economic  security? 

Which — if  any — of  the  parties 
has  ever  fulfilled  its  election 
promises? 

Is  a  political  platform  merely 
something  to  stand  on  in  order 
to  get  in? 

What  are  the  actual  functions 
of  political  government?  Does 
it  do  anything  other  than  spend 
the  taxpayer's  money  and  act  as 
a  referee  between  capital  and 
labor? 

What   does   your  vote    do    for 

JUNE,  1945 


you .' 

Is  'counting  noses'  an  efficient 
and  scientific  way  of  arriving  at 
social  decisions  in  the  Power 
Age? 

Will  the  winning  party  be  elect- 
ed by  a  majority  of  those  eligible 
to  vote?     Has  it  ever  been? 

Has  the  candidate  you  are  vot- 
ing for  any  knowledge  of  the 
problems  involved  in  operating  a 
highly  mechanized,  tenuous,  and 
complex  society? 

Would  that  candidate  be  likely 
to  remove  himself  from  political 
office  if  he  thought  it  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  nation  for  him  to  do 
so? 

Can  any  political  party  institute 
a  planned  economy  of  abundance 
on  the  North  American  Continent 
under  the  Price  System? 

Can  we  install  a  new  social 
mechanism  merely  by  marking 
X's  on  pieces  of  paper  or  do  we 
need  a  trained  disciplined  organi- 
zation— a  Technological  Army — 
to  do  the  job? 

The  march  of  events  within  the 
next  five  years  will  force  an  ans- 
wer to  these  questions. 

—The  Editor 


'There'll  Always  Be  an  England' 


The  United  Kingdom  is  fast  retrogressing  from  its  position  as  the 
possessor  of  easily  available  energy  to  its  next  most  probable  energy 
state  as  two  islands  off  the  coast  of  the  European  continent.  A  vali- 
ant race,  fighting  a  losing  battle,  is  displaying  an  admirable  fortitude 
in  the  crisis  that  is  resulting  from  excess  population,  declining  re- 
sources, and  obsolescent  equipment  operated  by  the  antiquated 
methods  of  a  Price  System.  — Howard  Scott    (19321 


IN  World  War  I  it  was  the  pre- 
vailing practice  to  divide  the 
nations  of  the  world  into  the 
simple  classifications  of  major 
and  minor  powers.  A  major  power 
was  generally  agreed  to  be  a 
national  entity  that  could  in  the 
time  of  war  mobilize  an  armed 
force  of  one  or  more  millions  as  a 
land  army  in  conjunction  with  a 
certain  degree  of  naval  power  and 
sufficient  agricultural  and  indus- 
trial production  and  transporta- 
tion facilities  to  supply  and  main- 
tain its  armed  forces  in  any  mili- 
tary conflict  in  which  it  might 
become  engaged. 

In  1914  Great  Britain,  France, 
Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  It- 
aly, Russia,  Japan  and  United 
States  constituted  the  major  pow- 
ers of  the  world.  In  1920  Austria- 
Hungary  had  disappeared  from 
the  ranks  of  the  major  powers. 
Germany,  although  defeated  in 
1918,  had  retreated  with  its  ban- 
ners flying,  its  general  staff,  offi- 
cers and  cadre  units  intact  and, 
while  technically  disarmed  by  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles,  it  was  never- 


theless in  the  matter  of  trained 
personnel,  population,  agricul- 
tural production  and  industrial 
potential  classified  as  a  major 
power.  Russia,  although  torn  by 
invasion,  defeat,  civil  war,  revo- 
lution and  famine,  was  still  too 
in  the  category  of  a  major  power. 

The  end  of  World  War  I  found 
most  of  the  major  powers,  victor 
and  vanquished  alike,  equipped 
with  a  greater  industrial  capacity 
and  potential  than  when  they 
entered  the  war  in  1914. 

Now,  27  years  later,  as  World 
War  II  draws  to  its  close  in 
Europe,  let  us  survey  the  scene. 
How  many  powers  will  remain 
in  the  category  of  the  major  clas- 
sification when  the  conflict 
ceases?  At  the  end  of  World 
War  I,  Great  Britain,  France,  and 
Italy,  the  victorious  powers,  pos- 
sessed large  and  well  trained  vet- 
eran land  armies  and  naval  forces. 
Even  vanquished  Germany  in  de- 
feat still  possessed  a  competent 
and  formidable  military  force  in 
her  land  army.  Today,  in  1945, 
will  the  situation  at  the  close  of 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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the  conflict  bear  any  relationship 
to  that  of  1918?  Where  is  the 
'Grand  Army'  of  France,  the  great 
military  force  of  Italy,  the 
mighty  BEF,  and  the  millions  of 
defeated  Germans? 

France,  defeated  and  overrun 
in  1940,  had  never  recuperated 
from  a  military  standpoint  in  its 
population  growth  from  its  terri- 
fic losses  of  manpower  in  World 
War  I.  France  lost  over  2,000,000 
of  her  armed  forces  as  prisoners 
of  war.  These  prisoners  of  war 
have  been  incarcerated  in  Ger- 
many in  concentration  camps  or 
at  slave  labor.  Besides  the  pris- 
oners of  war,  some  700,000  addi- 
tional numbers  of  French  man- 
hood were  drafted  as  slave  labor 
into  German  work  battalions. 
Five  years  as  a  prisoner  of  war 
or  as  a  slave  laborer  suffering 
from  overwork  and  malnutrition 
in  a  foreign  country  has  depleted 
the  normal  birthrate  of  France 
and  it  is  obvious  that  the 
death  rate  of  these  2,700,000 
Frenchman  would  be  greater  than 
that  existing  in  peacetime  condi- 
tions in  their  native  France.  It 
is  therefore  obvious  that  the  ef- 
fective military  potential  of  post- 
war France  is  further  reduced 
below  that  of  1939.  It  is  well  to 
remember  here  that,  when  we 
speak  of  the  military  power  of 
postwar  France,  we  are  speaking 
of  the  probabilities  of  creating  an 


armed  force  from  the  manhood 
of  France.  This  does  not  include 
the  black  Senegalese  of  French 
Africa,  the  yellow  Tonkinese  of 
French  Indo-China,  or  the  poss- 
ible colonial  conscripts  of  French 
Algeria  and  Morocco.  France  at 
the  end  of  World  War  II  will  be 
a  long  way  from  having  suffici- 
ent military  power  to  be  classi- 
fied in  the  major  category. 

The  armies  of  Italy  have  melt- 
ed away  on  the  plains  of  Russia, 
the  Balkans,  Albania  and  Africa. 
Defeated  Italy  will  no  longer 
have  an  armed  force  of  sufficient 
importance  to  be  classified  as  a 
military  power. 

The  great  armies  of  Fascist 
Germany  are  in  Russian  prison 
camps  or  lie  buried  in  Russian 
soil  and  the  lesser  remainder 
that  have  been  captured  by  the 
armies  of  Great  Britain,  France 
and  United  States.  Germany  in 
1945  will  have  no  fighting  army 
as  it  did  in  1918.  Its  entire  mili- 
tary force  will  have  disappeared. 

Only  Britain  and  Soviet  Russia 
of  the  European  major  powers 
will  remain  with  armies  of  any 
size  and  in  the  classification  of 
major  powers.  The  Army  of 
Soviet  Rusia  will  exceed  by  sev- 
eral times  the  entire  remainder 
Of  military  armed  might  in  Eur- 
ope. 

Great  Britain,  like  France,  was 
never  able  to  recover  her  military 


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JUNE,  1945 


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losses  or  manpower  in  World  War 
I.  The  total  casualties  of  World 
War  II  will  further  impair  the 
military  position  of  Great  Britain. 
The  question  which  comes  to  the 
fore  and  which  the  Continent  of 
North  America  and  the  world 
must  face  can  be  simply  put: 
Will  Great  Britain  be  a  major 
military  power  in  the  Europe  of 
tomorrow?  Great  Britain  with 
47  million  population  has  the  high 
density  of  population  of  495  per 
square  mile.  Can  we  expect 
Great  Britain  to  increase  its 
population  much  beyond  its  pre- 
sent total?  Such  expectations 
could  only  be  realized  provided 
the  British  Isles  possessed  ener- 
gy, mineral,  and  agricultural  re- 
sources great  enough  not  only 
adequately  to  maintain  its  exist- 
ing population  but  to  provide  for 
expansion  of  the  future.  Prewar 
Great  Britain  was  able  to  produce 
only  407'  of  the  foodstuffs  that 
it  consumed. 

Prewar  Great  Britain  in  its 
most  productive  years  was  able 
to  produce  between  240  and  260 
million  tons  of  coal  annually. 
Great  Britain  under  the  emerg- 
ency powers  of  war,  the  conscrip- 
tion of  labor  for  coal  mining,  and 
the  help  of  huge  open  pit  mining 
machinery  imported  from  United 
States,  was  able  to  produce  only 
193  million  tons  of  coal  in  1943. 
British    coal   production   has    de- 


clined 9  million  tons  annually 
since  the  start  of  the  war  in  1939. 
Britain,  that  once  was  the  great 
source  of  tin  for  the  Mediterran- 
ean civilization,  no  longer  is  a 
producer.  British  copper  produc- 
tion has  long  since  ceased.  Brit- 
ish iron  ore  has  been  in  continu- 
ous decline.  Great  Britain  dur- 
ing the  war  has  been  mining  iron 
ore  with  an  Fe  content  of  23  to 
27 %  .  With  such  an  iron  content 
per  ton  it  would  require  five  or 
more  tons  of  iron  ore  to  produce 
a  ton  of  steel,  and  a  like  amount 
of  coal. 

The  imperialist  expansion  of 
British  mercantilism  was  based 
on  the  adequate  resources,  and 
their  availability,  of  high  grade 
steam  and  coking  coal  and  rich 
iron  ore.  The  tin  is  gone,  the 
copper  is  gone,  and  the  coal  mines 
are  going  deeper  and  deeper  and 
farther  out  and  under  the  sea. 
The  iron  mines  are  going  deeper, 
and  the  ore  is  becoming  poorer. 
Do  not  misunderstand  us,  there 
will  always  be  coal  and  iron  and 
other  ores  in  Great  Britain  but 
those  ores  will  lie  in  sweet  repose 
below  the  7,000  foot  level,  the 
depth  at  which  the  law  of  dimin- 
ishing returns  becomes  the  arbi- 
ter of  a  nation's  destiny. 

Oil  has  been  discovered  and 
brought  into  considerable  pro- 
duction in  Britain  but  the  future 
of  British   oil  production  can  in 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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nowise  be  viewed  as  rescuing  the 
fuel  resource  situation  of  the 
British  Isles  because  the  oil  sur- 
veys show  that  the  oil  fields  map- 
ped, both  actual  and  potential,  by 
drilling  and  geophysical  surveys, 
are  of  a  minor  order  of  productive 
capacity  when  viewed  in  the 
terms  of  world  oil. 

Britain  does  not  produce  cot- 
ton. British  wool  production  is 
insufficient  to  meet  its  internal 
needs.  British  production  of 
lumber  is  totally  inadequate  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  British 
consumption.  Britain  can  pro- 
duce pulp  only  from  imported 
material.  Oil,  fats,  foods,  miner- 
als and  other  materials  must  be 
imported  into  the  British  Isles. 
Can  Great  Britain  hope  to  com- 
pete in  the  international  markets 
of  the  world  with  the  ever  in- 
creasing costs  of  her  declining 
resources  even  in  the  manufact- 
uring and  fabricating  from  im- 
ported raw  materials? 

Prewar  Great  Britain  averaged 
£866  million  in  imports  annually 
and  her  exports,  visible  and  in- 
visible, amounted  to  £826  million; 
a  net  loss  of  £40  million  of  imports 
over  exports.  Great  Britain  has 
for  a  number  of  years  been  meet- 
ing this  annual  deficit  in  export- 
import  balance  by  the  reinvest- 
ment of  her  capital  holdings 
abroad.  Included  in  the  £826  bil- 
lion  annual   average   prewar   ex- 


ports of  Britain  is  £478  million  of 
physical  goods,  but  the  figure  of 
£478  million  includes  £90  million 
of  imported  foreign  material,  so 
the  actual  net  physical  export  of 
Great  Britain  in  prewar  average 
actually  is  approximately  £390 
million. 

Keeping  these  figures  of  Brit- 
ish exports  and  imports  from  the 
Institute  of  Statistics  at  Oxford 
in  mind,  let  us  proceed.  During 
this  war  Great  Britain  has  been 
compelled  to  sacrifice  practically 
all  of  its  investments  abroad  in 
order  to  meet  its  war  purchases 
and  to  keep  exchange  balances. 
Great  Britain,  apart  from  Lend- 
Lease  and  the  Mutual  Aid  pro- 
gram of  Canada,  has  gone  into 
debt  on  a  huge  scale  in  the  world 
of  international  balances.  It  is 
reported  that  Canada  has  in  its 
possession  within  the  Dominion 
2  billion  American  dollars  worth 
of  British  currency  at  current  ex- 
change rates.  Great  Britain  owes 
the  nations  in  the  bloc  currency 
group  approximately  four  billion 
pounds.  Canada  is  not  a  member 
of  the  bloc  currency  group. 

It  is  therefore  obvious,  accord- 
ing to  the  previously  stated  fig- 
ures of  British  net  exports  of  £390 
million  a  year,  that  Great  Britain 
is  already  in  hock  for  her  total 
exports  for  ten  years.  Lend- 
Lease  and  Mutual  Aid  are  not 
even  included  in  the  above  state- 


JUNE,  1945 


merit.  Great  Britain,  in  order 
to  pay  off  her  obligations  to  the 
bloc  currency  group  alone  and 
to  maintain  her  previous  prewar 
export  status,  would  have  to  in- 
crease her  postwar  exports  of  net 
physical  goods  to  over  £800  mil- 
lion. Has  Great  Britain  the  re- 
sources and  the  facilities  to 
double  and  more  than  double  her 
production  of  physical  goods  for 
export,  and  at  the  same  time  sup- 
ply the  requirements  for  internal 
consumption  plus  national  rehabi- 
litation? The  picture  does  not 
provide  an  affirmative  answer. 

In  the  face  of  the  facts  of  the 
internal  situation  of  the  British 
Isles,  Beveridge  Plans,  Govern- 
ment plans  for  housing,  British 
cooperatives,  Conservative  and 
Labor  legislation  alike  are  but 
gestures  of  futility.  Technocracy 
would  like  to  recall  here  that  its 
analysis  of  British  conditions 
written  in  1932  is  being  carried 
forward  to  its  inexorable  con- 
clusion by  the  march  of  events. 
The  120,870  square  miles  of  the 
two  islands  known  as  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  off  the  coast 
of  Europe  have  been  the  home- 
land and  the  focal  area  from 
which  radiated  the  naval  military 
endeavors,  explorations,  and  mer- 
cantile imperialism  which  have 
expanded  into  the  British  Empire 
around  the  world.  In  over  four 
hundred  years  of  mercantile  im- 


perialism, the  British  Isles  have 
been  dependent  upon  the  energv 
and  mineral  resources  of  their 
homeland  to  provide  the  means 
whereby  Britain  could  become 
the  great  manufacturer,  the  lead- 
er of  world  trade,  the  great  im- 
porter of  raw  materials  from 
around  the  world,  and  the  great 
exporter  to  the  markets  of  the 
world. 

The  transition  from  an  insular 
island  kingdom  off  the  coast  of 
Europe  to  that  of  the  British  Em- 
pire dominating  the  markets  and 
trade  routes  of  the  world  has 
been  dependent  upon  the  con- 
sumption of  British  energy  and 
mineral  resources  in  ever-increas- 
ing volume.  The  British  Isles 
had  passed  their  zenith  in  the 
consumption  of  fundamental  in- 
dustrial resources  prior  to  the 
last  World  War.  The  resource 
position  of  the  British  Isles  has 
been  in  continuous  decline  for 
the  last  half  century  and  this 
position  is  becoming  more  and 
more  critical  as  the  years  go  by. 
Britain  faces  a  resource  position 
of  even  more  drastic  decline  in 
the  immediate  future. 

The  nations  of  the  other  areas 
of  the  British  Commonwealth  of 
Nations  overseas,  which  were 
once  the  dependent  colonies  of 
Great  Britain  and  which  for  cen- 
turies were  the  great  suppliers 
of    raw    material    to    the    British 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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homeland,  have  been  transform- 
ed by  area  technology  from  de- 
pendents to  superior  producers 
and  export  competitors.  Canada, 
Australia,  South  Africa  and  India 
have  transformed  themselves 
from  export  agrarian  economies 
to  export  manufacturing  econo- 
mies. These  countries  are  far 
greater  in  area  than  the  British 
homeland  and  are  more  magni- 
ficently endowed  with  energy, 
mineral  and  agricultural  re- 
sources, and  climatic  range. 

The  policy  of  colonial  expan- 
sion of  mercantile  imperialism 
can  maintain  the  homeland  posi- 
tion only  if  the  colonies  larger  in 
area  than  the  homeland  are  oper- 
ated by  human  toil  and  hand  tools 
as  raw  material  suppliers  at  low 
labor  costs  to  the  heart  of  the 
Empire.  When  any  nation  takes 
over  a  colonial  area  greater  in 
size  and  resources  than  its  home- 
land and  under  the  impetus  of 
mercantile  exploitation  proceeds 
to  develop  that  colonial  area  by 
the  introduction  of  technological 
production  in  use  at  home,  it  will 
first  export  capital  for  investment 
in  its  colony.  This  investment  of 
capital  in  colonial  expansion  will 
proceed  for  a  number  of  years 
reaching  a  zenith  and  then  falling 
away. 

As  the  export  capital  is  invest- 
ed in  the  development  and  cre- 
ation of  capital  goods  industries 

JUNE,  1945 


in  the  colony,  the  homeland  will 
prosper  with  greater  export  trade 
to  the  colony.  The  technological 
production  of  the  homeland  will 
require  that  the  colonial  area 
must  develop  its  conversion  of 
energy  per  capita  in  order  to  con- 
sume the  export  product  of  the 
motherland.  As  the  technological 
facilities  of  the  colony  are  in- 
creased, its  resources  developed 
and  its  transportation  coordinat- 
ed, it  automatically  follows  that 
the  larger  area  of  the  colony  will 
soon  begin  to  approach  and  finally 
pass  the  mother  country  in  its 
conversion  of  energy  per  capita 
per  day.  In  the  moment  of  its 
passing,  if  not  before,  the  colony 
ceases  to  be  a  dependent  of  the 
mother  country  and  becomes  a 
more  virile,  more  competent  pro- 
ducer and  exporter  than  the 
homeland. 

Great  Britain  has  arrived  at 
this  position  in  her  physical  re- 
lationship with  her  dominions 
overseas.  The  question  every 
subject,  or  every  citizen  if  you 
like,  of  the  British  dominions 
overseas  should  squarely  face  is 
how  long  can  the  British  domin- 
ions overseas  continue  to  provide 
the  physical  resource  support  for 
the  operation  of  the  British  Isles. 
The  British  Isles,  if  socially  re- 
organized under  a  technological 
control,  can  provide  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living  for  15  to  20  million 


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total  population  over  an  extended 
period.  If  the  British  Isles  at- 
tempt to  maintain  their  present 
population  or  to  increase  it,  they 
face  a  future  of  decreasing  stand- 
ards of  living,  rising  population 
pressure,  and  greater  poverty 
which  can  be  solved  only  by  the 
export  of  Britain's  surplus  popu- 
lation overseas.  It  is  with  this 
in  mind  that  Technocracy  advo- 
cates that  the  Dominion  of  Cana- 
da grant  immigration  preference 
to  35  million  British  subjects. 

No  people  in  the  world  are  en- 
titled to  more  respect  and  admira- 
tion than  the  people  of  the  British 
Isles   have   gained   through   their 


display  of  outstanding  fortitude, 
courage  and  tenacity  in  the  face 
of  national  adversity.  Unfortun- 
ately, no  nation  however  courag- 
eous can  recoup  its  declining  re- 
source potential  by  the  morale  of 
its  heroic  citizens.  Technocracy's 
analysis  must  not  be  interpreted 
as  being  in  any  way  an  expression 
of  antipathy  or  opposition  to  the 
people  of  the  British  Isles.  It  is 
an  analysis  of  physical  factors 
presented  to  inform  the  people  of 
this  Continent,  and  as  a  matter 
of  concern  for  the  people  of  a 
nation  who  are  our  closest  rela- 
tives in  tradition,  blood  and  lan- 
guage.   — CHQ,  Technocracy  Inc. 


■jr  LONDON. — Britain  has  lost  leadership  in  merchant  shipping  to  the  United  Suites, 
J.  E.  Emlyn  Jones,  former  chairman  of  the  Bristol  Channel  Shipowners  Association, 
said.  He  estimated  by  the  end  of  the  year  American  ships  will  be  capable  of  carrying 
57,500,000  tons  of  cargo — nearly  3  V2  times  the  British  capacity. 

— Vancouver   News-Herald 

1r  LIVERPOOL. — Sir  Nicholas  Cayzer,  retiring  chairman  of  the  Liverpool  steamship 
owners'  association,  said  .  .  .  that  most  of  the  shipping  built  by  the  United  States 
during  the  war  should  be  scrapped  after  the  armistice.  'If  this  huge  volume  of 
tonnage,  mainly  tramp  and  tanker  in  type,  is  thrown  on  the  freighter  markets,'  he 
said,  '  ...  its  effect  on  both  shipping  and  shipbuilding  industries  of  this  and  other 
maritime   nations,   including   the    United    States,   would   be   disastrous.' 

— Canadian  Press 

•ft  BRITAIN  MAY  TRY  to  go  hack  towards  the  system  of  free  enterprise — but  she 
won't  get  there.  She  won't  get  there  for  the  best  of  all  reasons — that  the  British 
troops  are  not  coming  home  to  go  back  on  the  dole  by  millions. 

That  'glorious  free  enterprise'  of  which  Mr.  Churchill  is  so  proud  doesn't  look 
quite  the  same  to  the  men  now  in  their  middle  twenties  who  never  in  all  their  lives 
had   a   steady   job  till   they   got   it   shooting   at   Germans.  — Elmore   Philpott 

*  THE  CONFUSIONS  OF  THIS  EPOCH  stem  from  the  failure  to  adapt  our  eco- 
nomic  and  political  techniques  to  the  requirements  of  the  age  of  power.  The  conse- 
quences of  that  failure  become  daily  more  costly.  To  it  must  be  charged  the  human 
and  material  wreckage  of  two  world  wars  and  the  increasing  economic  dislocations 
of  peace.  — Stanley  McConnell  in  Saturday  Night 


10 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


The  Age  of  Alchemy 


This  article  is  one  of  the  finest  to  appear  in  any  Price  System  pub- 
lication during  World  War  II.  It  backs  up  Technocracy's  analysis  of 
the  economic  situation  that  confronts  North  America  and  the  World 
Keep  the  preceding  article  in  mind  when  reading  it. 


STATED  simply,  the  one  most 
important  institution  in  our 
complex  scheme  of  material  civili- 
zation— universal  in  it — is  break- 
ing up  before  our  eyes.  World 
War  I  rocked  it  to  its  foundations; 
World  War  II  may  well  finish  it. 
The  name  of  that  institution  is 
international  trade. 

People  will  always  be  free,  we 
suppose,  to  exchange  with  one 
another  unlike  and  unique  goods, 
and  may  find  endless  satisfaction 
in  doing  it.  What  we  speak  of 
here  is  international  trade  re- 
garded as  a  necessity. 

In  its  origin  there  was  no  ele- 
ment of  necessity,  or  hardly  any, 
except  in  special  regional  cases. 
The  spirit  was  adventure,  the 
motive  was  profit,  the  method 
was  one  of  ruthless  exploitation 
of  the  innocents.  The  fact  of 
necessity  evolved,  and  as  it 
evolved  the  profit  declined,  until 
profit  alone — private  profit — was 
not  enough  to  sustain  it;  where- 
upon governments  began  to  take 
foreign  trade  out  of  the  hands  of 
private   traders  to   control  it  for 


Reprinted  from  The  Atlantic  Monthly 
by  kind  permission   of  the  publisher. 

JUNE,  1945 


political  ends  and  to  subsidize  it 
with  public  funds,  because  at  last 
the  necessity  had  become  vital, 
and  was  of  this  kind: — 

First,  that  a  people  who  had 
abandoned  agriculture  for  indus- 
try were  obliged  to  import  food 
and  raw  materials  in  exchange 
for  manufactured  goods,  in  order 
to  live. 

Second,  that  as  the  machines 
of  the  industrial  nations  multi- 
plied, the  output  of  manufactured 
goods  came  to  be  more  than  could 
be  absorbed  by  the  people  who 
produced  only  food  and  raw 
materials  and  had  generally  a  low 
standard  of  living.  Then  came 
the  specter  of  surplus  and  unem- 
ployment in  the  industrial  nations 
and  the  struggle  among  them  to 
sell  their  similar  and  competitive 
machine  wares  in  one  another's 
markets.  At  the  same  time,  each 
put  up  tariff  barriers  against  the 
others;  that  is  to  say,  each  was 
trying  to  invade  the  markets  of 
the  others  while  desperately  de- 
fending its  own. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  modern 
machine  age,  Adam  Smith,  writ- 
ing on  the  uses  of  foreign  trade, 


11 


said:  'The  land  and  labor  of  Great 
Britain  produce  generally  more 
corn,  woollens,  and  hardware 
than  the  demand  of  the  home 
market  requires.  The  surplus 
part  of  them,  therefore,  must 
be  sent  abroad  and  exchanged  for 
something  for  which  there  is  a 
demand  at  home.  It  is  only  by 
means  of  such  exportation  that 
this  surplus  can  acquire  a  value 
sufficient  to  compensate  the  labor 
and  expense  of  producing  it.' 

This  was  about  1776.  If  we 
have  the  faintest  idea  of  what 
the  standard  of  common  living 
was  at  that  time  in  England,  we 
know  that  there  was  no  surplus 
of  human  satisfactions.  The  same 
labor,  land,  and  capital  that  pro- 
duced what  Smith  calls  a  sur- 
plus might  have  been  employed 
to  produce  more  of  the  goods 
people  wanted  at  home  instead 
of  goods  they  had  to  send  away. 
At  least,  that  was  true  then.  We 
know  also  that  the  goods  they 
sent  away  did  not  all  come  back 
in  the  form  of  things  the  people 
wanted;  a  great  part  of  what  was 
exported  took  the  form  of  invest- 
ments in  foreign  countries — tram- 
ways, railroads,  docks,  London 
facades  in  Shanghai  and  Hong 
Kong. 

The  kind  of  trade  Adam  Smith 
was  talking  about  was  trade  for 
profit,  and  the  profit  was  so  great 
that  England  sacrificed  her  own 


agriculture  to  industry.  In  a  little 
while  there  was  no  surplus  corn 
to  sell  (corn  in  the  Old  World 
meaning  small  grains,  not  maize). 
Instead,  she  found  herself  import- 
ing not  only  the  materials  of  food 
for  human  consumption  but  the 
raw  materials  her  machines  de- 
voured. In  a  little  while  more 
her  'umbilical  cords'  ran  to  every 
part  of  the  world;  and  since  these 
cords  were  vital  to  her  preferred 
way  of  existence  she  had  to  pro- 
tect them.  In  order  to  protect 
them  she  had  to  control  the  seas. 

The  system  worked  very  well 
and  was  wonderfully  profitable 
so  long  as  she  had  what  amounted 
to  a  world  monopoly  of  machine 
craft.  The  first  nation  to  threaten 
that  monopoly  was  Germany.  The 
second  was  the  United  States.  At 
the  outbreak  of  World  War  I, 
these  were  the  three  principal  in- 
dustrial nations  of  the  world; 
Japan  was  coming. 

One  effect  of  the  war  was  that 
the  machine  went  migrating. 
Every  intelligent  nation  wanted 
machines  of  its  own,  because,  in 
the  first  place,  it  was  seen  that  a 
nation  with  no  industrial  power 
of  its  own  was  helpless  in  time 
of  war,  even  as  a  neutral;  and, 
secondly,  there  was  no  longer  any 
doubt  that  a  people  who  produced 
only  food  and  raw  materials  for 
export,  and  exchanged  them  for 
manufactured    goods,     tended   to 


12 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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become  fixed  in  the  inferior  eco- 
nomic status,  with  a  low  standard 
of  living.  Thus,  new  machine  in- 
dustry became  apparitional  all 
over  the  world;  and  no  sooner 
had  a  country  found  its  own  way 
with  machines  than  it  began  to 
want  markets  for  a  surplus  of 
competitive  machine  products 
and  a  favorable  balance  of  trade. 

At  a  luncheon  in  London,  Lord 
Astor  turned  to  me,  saying:  'Do 
you  know,  as  a  result  of  the  war 
many  countries  now  have  indus- 
tries that  are  not  entitled  to  have 
them.'  My  answer  was  to  ask: 
'How  does  an  Englishman  deter- 
mine what  countries  are  entitled 
to  have  industry?' 

Besides  the  countries  that  now 
had  industries  of  their  own  for 
the  first  time,  the  three  principal 
industrial  countries  had  enor- 
mously increased  their  capacity 
during  the  war,  especially  Ger- 
many and  the  United  States;  and 
meanwhile,   Japan   had   arrived. 

Such  were  the  conditions  un- 
der which  Great  Britain  argued 
that  even  if  she  could  afford  to 
pay  her  war  debt  to  the  United 
States  Treasury,  we  could  not 
afford  to  receive  payment.  Why 
was  that?  Because  she  would 
have  to  pay  us  in  competitive  in- 
dustrial products — in  textiles, 
machinery,  and  hardware;  and  if 
we  took  such  goods  from  her, 
what    should    we     do     with     the 

JUNE,  1945 


American  labor  that  was  employ- 
ed in  producing  like  goods — not 
only  enough  for  the  American 
market,  but  a  surplus  for  sale  in 
foreign  markets?  If  she  should 
sell  her  goods  elsewhere  in  the 
world  to  get  the  money  to  pay 
her  debt  to  the  United  States 
Treasury,  it  would  come  to  the 
same  thing,  for  she  would  be 
taking  away  our  customers. 

What  we  did  was  to  raise  our 
tariffs  against  all  foreign  manu- 
facturers, those  of  England  in- 
cluded, to  keep  them  from  dis- 
placing American  goods  in  the 
American  market;  and  then  we 
loaned  Europe  eight  or  ten  bil- 
lions with  which  to  buy  the  sur- 
plus product  of  American  indus- 
try. All  of  those  billions  we  lost. 
Worse  still,  a  very  large  part  of 
what  we  loaned  to  Europe  and 
lost  there  in  the  1920's  was  used 
to  increase  the  industrial  capacity 
of  Europe,  both  in  countries  that 
had  industry  before,  like  Ger- 
many, and  in  others  like  Poland 
and  Czechoslovakia.  We  were 
buying  competition  for  ourselves. 

And  yet,  because  the  political 
and  financial  ruin  of  international 
trade  was  an  event  the  world 
was  not  prepared  to  face,  all  this 
immense  absurdity  was  passed 
over. 

The  idea  of  economic  self-con- 
tainment now  runs  in  bad  com- 
pany.    It  is  associated  with  poli- 


13 


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tK.it 


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■  ■ 


■  kf  -'*  ■     HH 

V  ■  mm 


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■Bk 


■jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjb  H  ■K^BhBH 
•■•■■•■ 


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tical  isolationism.  But  we  are 
not  discussing  self-containment 
as  an  idea  or  an  ideal.  We  are 
trying  to  look  at  what  has  hap- 
pened to  international  trade,  and 
at  the  impending  ruin  of  it;  and 
if  this  does  at  length  force  the 
world  into  several  great  regions 
of  self-containment,  the  people 
inhabiting  those  regions  need  be 
no  more  isolated  from  one  an- 
other than  farmers  who  lived 
side  by  side  oa  the  kind  of  farm 
plot  that  once  was  natural  and 
ideal,  beginning  at  the  stream 
and  running  to  the  top  of  the 
next  hill.  Each  farmer  had,  there- 
fore, water,  pasture,  lowland,  up- 
land, and  on  the  hillside  his  wood- 
lot.  But  he  was  not,  by  reason 
of  this  perfect  self-containment, 
isolated  from  his  neighbors. 

With  the  profit  gone  out  of  it, 
and  with  the  supply  of  docile 
people  willing  to  perform  the 
drudgeries  of  its  primary  produc- 
tion coming  to  an  end,  one  would 
say  that  international  trade  had 
outlived  itself;  but  one  would  say 
also  that  if  the  necessity  for  it 
were  vital  a  way  would  be  found 
to  go  on  with  it.  Let  it  be  a 
question  of  survival  for  the  in- 
dustrial people,  of  living  or  not 
living,  and  such  a  thing  as  profit 
really  does  not  count. 

But  if  the  vital  necessity  is  in 
a  state  of  decline,  tending  to  dis- 
appear,  then  the  ruin    of    inter- 


14 


national  trade  as  we  have  known 
it,  and  as  we  continue  to  think  of 
it,  is  very  clearly  indicated.  The 
startling  premonition  that  this 
may  be  so  has  its  strange  occa- 
sions. 

Not  long  before  Pearl  Harbor, 
reflecting  on  what  might  be  the 
next  state  of  the  world  and  what 
we  should  do  with  a  conquered 
Japan,  I  was  turning  the  pages 
of  the  Japan  Times  Weekly,  es- 
pecially the  advertising  pages,  for 
it  was  a  number  devoted  to  for- 
eign trade,  and  there  were  the 
things  Japan  was  going  to  make 
and  sell  all  over  the  world  at 
competitive  prices,  save  in  Asia: 
she  would  enclose  Asia  from  com- 
petition in  order  to  sell  them 
there  on  her  own  terms.  What 
things?  Well,  all  the  things  she 
once  bought  from  the  machine 
people  of  the  West  before  she 
learned  how  to  make  them,  first 
for  herself  and  then  for  export. 
And  these  are  the  things,  more- 
over, that  the  Western  machine 
people  still  want  to  sell  in  the 
East:  for  example,  machinery, 
tools,  hardware,  electrical  equip- 
ment, glass,  perfumes,  pharma- 
ceuticals, chemicals,  motorcars, 
garage  equipment,  guns  and 
munitions,  typewriters,  plastics, 
rayon,  cotton  goods,  agricultural 
implements,  surgical  instruments, 
optical  goods,  engines  of  all  kinds, 
tires    and    rubber      goods,      wire 

TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


cable,  leather  belting,  and  so  on 
and  on.  And  for  nearly  all  these 
things  Japan  has  to  think  first  of 
importing   the   raw   materials. 

In  the  same  number  of  the 
magazine  there  was  a  continuing 
discussion  of  the  Greater  Asia  Co- 
prosperity  Plan.  Under  this  plan 
the  inferior  people  will  be  the 
hewers  and  drawers — and  the  'in- 
ferior' people  are  all  others  than 
the  Japanese.  Thus,  from  China, 
there  will  come  to  Japan  coal  and 
ore;  and  perhaps  the  culture  of 
the  silkworm,  as  seeming  now  to 
be  below  the  dignity  of  an  over- 
lord people,  will  be  transferred 
from  Japan  to  China.  From  what 
was  French  Indo-China,  rice, 
corn,  and  rubber  will  come  to 
Japan.  From  Thailand,  rice,  rub- 
ber, lumber,  and  lac.  From  what 
were  the  Dutch  East  Indies,  rub- 
ber, sugar,  tea,  tobacco,  copra, 
and  oil.  From  the  Philippines, 
sugar,  hemp,  tobacco,  and  more 
lumber.  Food  for  the  Japanese 
and  raw  materials  for  their  ma- 
chines. Five  or  six  hundred 
millions  of  Chinese,  Javanese, 
Malays,  and  Balinese  performing 
the  tasks  of  primary  production 
for  ninety  millions  of  Japanese; 
and  for  the  Japanese,  industry, 
banking,  shipping,  administration, 
profit,  power,  empire. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  this 
plan,  save  only  that  it  is  Japan- 
ese— that  is,  it  is  Japan  doing  to 


Asia  what  the  West  did  to  the 
East.  Nor  is  there  anything  new 
in  the  naive  Japanese  words:  'In 
this  way  the  relationship  will  be- 
come one  of  give-and-take,  and 
will  benefit  both  parties.' 

But  there  was  a  Japanese  edi- 
tor, too,  thinking  his  own 
thoughts,  as  an  editor  sometimes 
will;  and  suddenly  all  this  grand 
thesis  collided  with  something  the 
Japanese  propaganda  bureau  had 
not  put  in  his  mind — namely,  the 
premonition  we  spoke  of.  He  did 
not  intend  this  to  happen.  It  was 
as  an  accident.  He  was  writing 
an  editorial  about  what  would 
happen  to  Japan  if  the  United 
States  stopped  buying  her  silk, 
and  he  said,  defiantly:  'As  the 
United  States  believes  it  is  ready 
to  do  without  much  or  most  of  its 
silk,  by  the  substitution  of  nylon, 
this  country  also  has  to  learn  to 
do  without  some  of  the  things 
which  silk  dollars  could  buy. 
Synthetic  methods  are  not  confin- 
ed to  one  country.' 

And  from  there  he  went  head- 
long to  the  accident.  'The 
growing  power  of  chemistry,'  he 
said,  'is  doing  much  to  provide  the 
have-not  countries  with  the  pro- 
ducts they  need,  even  as  Ger- 
many has  been  able  to  make  a 
synthetic  rubber  of  great  prac- 
tical value,  whose  quality  is  im- 
proving monthly.  No  research  or 
manufacturing       chemist       today 


JUNE,  1945 


15 


would  hesitate  to  predict  that 
most  countries,  in  a  not  too  dis- 
tant time,  will  be  able  to  find  all 
the  essential  things  in  their  own 
back  yards.  There  will  be  merely 
the  necessity  to  pass  soil  and 
rocks  through  machines  or  pro- 
cesses for  the  recovery  of  wanted 
materials.  The  outlook  offers  a 
distant  solution  to  the  problem  of 
international  trade.  It  should  not 
be  necessary  for  a  country,  in 
order  to  live,  to  send  its  manu- 
factures to  distant  lands  or  to 
import  the  necessities.' 

Now  what  had  he  said?  If  it 
were  true,  then  neither  the  China 
affair,  as  they  speak  of  it,  nor  the 
contemplated  total  conquest  of 
Asia  and  the  South  Pacific  which 
was  about  to  begin,  could  be  re- 
garded as  a  rational  adventure. 
There  was  pride  of  idea  in  what 
he  had  written;  he  believed  it. 
Yet  what  would  the  censor  say? 

Therefore  he  added  this:  'Japan 
in  due  time  will  have  to  find  her 
opportunities  within  her  own 
economy,  but  the  situation  today 
demands  interim  measures  such 
as  the  government  is  working 
out.' 

Here  is,  perhaps,  the  strangest 
thing  that  was  ever  defined:  an 
interim  war;  a  war  belonging 
not  to  the  future  but  to  the  past; 
a  war  not  to  perpetuate  inter- 
national trade  but  only  to  keep  it 
alive  for  a  while. 


This  consternation  of  doubt, 
taking  place  in  the  mind  of  a 
Japanese  editor,  is  merely  a  vivid 
and  unexpected  exhibit.  The  eco- 
nomic thought  of  the  world  is  in 
the  same  way  stultified.  When 
the  war  is  over,  shall  we  have  to 
scrap  our  synthetic  rubber  indus- 
try, keeping  only  a  few  plants  to 
remember  it  by  in  case  we  need 
it  again?  And  if  so,  why?  In 
order  that  we  may  go  on  buying 
natural  rubber  in  Asia,  for  unless 
we  do  go  on  buying  rubber  in 
Asia,  instead  of  making  it  for  our- 
selves, it  will  be  very  bad  for  in- 
ternational trade  and  ruinous  for 
the  people  of  Asia  who  have 
learned  to  five  by  rubber — to  say 
nothing  of  our  friends,  the  Dutch 
and  English,  who  own  the  rubber 
plantations. 

We  can  now  begin  to  make  out 
dimly  the  economic  evolution  that 
is  taking  place.  We  are  passing 
from  the  age  of  machine  tech- 
niques to  the  age  of  alchemy.  It 
is  a  momentous  event.  Future 
and  past  are  in  conflict.  One  re- 
members the  saying  of  Walter 
Bagehot,  on  history,  that  many 
times  it  had  seemed  that  people 
were  about  to  make  a  great  step 
forward,  they  had  prepared  for  it, 
they  knew  what  they  were  doing 
and  where  they  were  going;  then 
they  had  looked  back,  and  did 
not  advance. 

If  one  takes  the  Anglo-Ameri- 


16 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


mKF8£&&M 


I  H  Si 

- 

9b(9  ;-£sl 


can  projection  to  be  authentically 
represented  by  the  Atlantic 
Charter,  the  system  of  lend-lease 
agreements  touching  the  world 
that  shall  come  after,  the  Hull 
Doctrine,  the  apocalyptic  econo- 
mics of  Henry  Wallace,  the  guilt 
theme  of  Sumner  Welles,  the  Re- 
port of  the  London  Chamber  of 
Commerce  on  the  General  Prin- 
ciples of  a  Post-War  Economy, 
and  what  may  be  called  the  Brit- 
ish Confession  by  Sir  Stafford 
Cripps,  one  will  see  that  it  begins 
with  contrition  and  proceeds 
from  a  certain  assumption  as  to 
what  was  wrong  with  the  world 
before.  Those  who  mainly  con- 
trolled the  raw-material  resources 
of  the  earth  were  too  selfish,  too 
much  concerned  with  their  own 
profit,  too  unmindful  of  the  needs 
of  others.  That  was  wrong.  That 
was  why  international  trade  be- 
came a  moral  and  economic  night- 
mare. Hereafter  it  must  be 
different.  Nations  must  learn  to 
think  not  only  of  themselves  but 
of  one  another,  too;  and  all  people 
must  have  access  to  raw  materials 
and  markets  according  to  their 
needs. 

All  of  this,  says  the  other  side, 
is  Devil's  holy  water.  The  ag- 
gressor mentally  assumes  that 
those  who  control  the  sources  of 
raw  material  will  be  selfish  and 
heedless.  What  is  possession  for? 
Sources  of  wealth  are  not  to  be 


shared.  They  are  to  be  exploited 
by  those  who  are  strong  enough 
to  take  them. 

But  what  is  left  out — missing 
both  from  the  Anglo-American 
projection  and  from  the  brutal 
aggressor  thesis — is  the  fact  of 
economic  evolution. 

As  we  pass  from  the  age  of 
techniques  to  the  age  of  alchemy 
— if  we  do — we  shall  cease  to 
think  of  raw  materials  as  deposits 
of  solar  energy  that  must  be  dug 
out  of  the  earth's  crust,  or  as  a 
kind  of  plant  life  that  will  flour- 
ish only  in  a  certain  place.  The 
sources  will  be  such  as  no  one 
can  conquer,  possess  exclusively, 
or  exploit  selfishly. 

In  forgotten  textbooks,  one 
finds  that  less  than  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago  the  political 
and  economic  thought  of  the 
world  was  sunk  in  gloomy  medi- 
tation on  the  food  supply.  A  man 
named  Malthus  had  written  a 
treatise  in  which  he  demonstrated 
what  was  then  a  fact — namely, 
that  population  in  a  natural  way 
tended  to  increase  much  faster 
than  the  food  supply.  The  num- 
ber of  arable  acres  was  a  limited 
quantity,  not  by  any  means  in- 
creasable,  whereas  the  impulse 
of  the  human  species  to  repro- 
duce itself  knew  no  limit.  If  this 
were  true,  then  the  human  race 
was  doomed  to  be  limited  by  a 
tragic  fringe  of  misery  and  star- 


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vation,  unless  it  could  think  of  a 
way  to  limit  itself  by  continence. 
The  reason  no  one  could  reason 
away  this  doctrine  of  Malthus 
was  that  no  one  could  imagine 
what  was  going  to  happen. 

It  was  not  that  vast  areas  of 
virgin  land  were  opening,  as  in 
North  America;  there  would  soon 
be  an  end  to  that  and  the  situa- 
tion would  be  again  as  it  was, 
according  to  the  Malthus  formula. 
Primitive  agriculture  was  pass- 
ing; scientific  agriculture  was 
coming.  Knowledge  was  increas- 
ing. The  application  of  scientific 
thought  to  agriculture,  plus  mod- 
ern transportation,  so  increased 
the  power  of  man  to  bring  forth 
food  from  the  earth  and  to  make 
it  available  that  in  the  hundred 
years  after  Malthus  population 
increased  as  it  had  never  in- 
creased in  any  century  before; 
and  the  more  it  increased,  the 
more  food  there  was,  to  the  ab- 
surd point  of  surplus. 

From  this  unpredictable  solu- 
tion of  the  food  problem  there 
was  a  tremendous  release  of 
human  energy.  The  measure  of 
it  may  be  imagined  from  the  fact 
that  in  two  generations  the  a- 
mount  of  human  energy  neces- 
sary to  be  spent  in  agriculture 
fell  at  least  one  half.  That  is 
what  made  the  industrial  age 
possible.  Otherwise  it  could  not 
have   arrived.      The    labor   for  it 


could  not  have  been  spared  from 
agriculture. 

But  with  the  rise  of  modern 
industry  appeared  a  new  kind  of 
food  problem.  There  was  a  new 
stomach  to  fill.  Machines  had  to 
be  fed.  They  devoured  raw  ma- 
terials insatiably.  And  as  it  had 
been  once  supposed  that  the  hu- 
man food  supply  was  limited  by 
what  the  art  of  primitive  agri- 
culture could  produce  from  an 
inexpansible  number  of  acres,  so, 
when  we  began  to  worry  about 
enough  raw  materials  to  feed  the 
machines,  it  was  supposed  that 
the  supply  of  these  was  limited, 
too.  A  coal  mine  here,  an  oil 
well  there,  a  kind  of  tree  that 
would  flourish  only  in  a  certain 
climate — and  whoever  owned  the 
coal  mine  and  the  oil  well  and 
the  area  where  the  tree  grew 
could  feed  their  own  machines 
and  starve  the  machines  of  rival 
people.  So  there  came  to  be  a 
Malthusian  doctrine  of  raw  ma- 
terials, and  it  was  implicit  in  the 
power  politics  of  the  world. 

Like  the  original  Malthusian 
doctrine,  this  one  was  true  in  the 
making — true,  that  is  to  say,  in 
relation  to  the  then  state  of  know- 
ledge. Today  it  is  true  mainly 
for  the  reason  that  we  continue 
to  think  and  behave  as  if  it  were, 
war  being  one  form  of  that  as 
if  behavior.     In  a  little  while,  if 

i  Continued  on   Page   Thirty-five) 


18 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


■ 


■  I 

MB 


H 


OBSERVATION   -   STUDY   -   ANALYSIS 
-  REPORT. 


JUNE,  1945 


Prepared  by  Editorial  Staff 


No.  29 


QanadUcun  Pacuesi  %&j&lafi*ne4tt 


UBBP 


CANADA  will  end  the  war  with  far  greater  developed  power  re- 
sources than  she  has  ever  had  before.  Since  1939,  turbine  installa- 
tion has  increased  24%,  and  production  of  primary  power  for  use  in 
Canada  over  80%. 

This  expansion  has  been  called  a  postwar  problem.  In  certain 
local  areas  slackening  war  demands  may  mean  surplus  power;  Arvida, 
where  the  giant  Shipshaw  development  harnessed  over  a  million  new 
horsepower  to  power  the  production  of  war-strategic  aluminum,  may 
find  itself  overpowered. 

But  across  the  country,  many  Canadian  businessmen  are  begin- 
ning to  feel  that  Canada's  10  million  h.p.  development  presents  a  uni- 
que opportunity  for  Canadian  enterprise — a  challenge  to  make  pro- 
uctive  use  of  one  of  Canada's  greatest  assets.  Beyond,  lies  an  even 
greater  challenge  to  produce:  another  44  million  h.p.  already  recorded, 
not  including  many  streams  of  a  type  used  to  great  advantage  in  older 
countries. 

Canada  has  more  developed  water  power  per  head  than  any  other 
country  (before  the  war  Norway  and  Newfoundland  outstripped  her 
on  this  basis) .  Water  power  is  the  backbone  of  many  slowly  emerg- 
ing new  industries,  is  indispensible  to  older  ones. 

In  fact,  if  it  were  not  for  her  water  resources,  it  is- highly  un- 
likely that  Canada's  industry  would  ever  have  become  more  than  a 


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foam  on  the  top  of  some  agricultural  cream.  Modern  industry  re- 
quires power  resources;  production  per  manhour,  and  return  per 
dollar,  bear  close  relationship  to  the  amount  of  power  that  is  used 
to  speed  the  production  of  a  pair  of  human  hands,  whether  that  power 
comes  from  coal,  oil,  gas  or  electricity.  The  old  'theory  of  the  location 
of  industry'  placed  the  factory  close  to  where  the  coal  was,  in  the 
days  when  coal  was  king. 

In  those  days  industrial  development  was  pretty  well  out  for 
Canada.  Her  coal  resources  were  few  and  scattered,  and  industrial 
development  was  a  matter  of  exchanging  agricultural  surpluses  for 
such  power  as  she  could  get.  But  in  1897  the  British  Empire's  first 
high  tension  transmission  line  was  strung  across  the  18  miles  from 
St.  Narcisse  to  Three  Rivers,  Que.,  and  Canada  entered  a  new  era. 
Now  85  %  of  her  industry,  over  60  %  of  her  population,  is  in  the  'critical 
fuel  zone' — the  central  provinces  which  have  no  native  coal  resources. 
They  have,  however,  about  half  of  Canada's  potential  water  power, 
about  three  quarters  of  her  developed  power.  Her  chief  pre-war  ex- 
port was  the  product  of  the  industries  which  made  the  most  use  of  her 
power  resources:  pulp  and  paper.  The  paper  industry  consumed  about 
a  third  of  the  power  produced  by  the  central  electric  stations  of 
Canada,  and  owned  about  6%  of  the  Canadian  turbines  on  its  own 
account. 

Next  in  importance  as  consumer  of  electric  power,  and  high  in 
the  rank  of  export  was  Canada's  mining  and  metallurgical  industry. 
Without  these  industries  which  depend  heavily  on  water  power, 
Canada  might  find  herself  in  no  position  to  buy  the  coal  and  petroleum 
products  that  power  the  rest  of  her  industrial  developments — at  least 
not  on  a  large  enough  scale  to  make  her  the  third  industrial  nation  in 
the  British  Empire  and  the  second  trading  nation  of  the  world. 

With  this  as  her  industrial  background,  Canada  cannot  regard 
developed  power  as  a  liability  or  even  as  a  problem.  In  practice. 
Canadian  businessmen  have  been  quick  to  make  use  of  this  major 
asset.  The  installation  of  electric  motors  operated  by  purchased  power 
in  industry  increased  82%  between  1929  and  1941;  of  this  increase 
7&r/r  went  to  manufacturing,  24r/<-  to  mining. 

In  the  mining  industry,  there  was  an  uninterrupted  increase  in 
the  amount  of  equipment  operated  by  purchased  power  from  1919  to 
1941,  with  no  slackening  even  in  the  depression.  The  growth  of  power 
equipment  installed  in  manufacturing  plants  was  just  as  steady.     In 


20 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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both  cases,  too,  there  was  an  increasing  tendency  to  depend  for  power 
on  central  electric  stations  rather  than  on  power  generated  within  the 
industry. 

Partly  because  increased  use  of  power  has  been  a  long-term  trend, 
utility  officials  have  said  that  any  postwar  'problem'  of  surplus  power 
will  be  merely  temporary;  that,  in  fact,  the  problem  may  be  to  develop 
more  power  quickly  enough  in  the  right  places.  The  non-portability  of 
power  is  of  course  its  greatest  problem.  It  can  be  transmitted  for  dis- 
tances of  more  than  200  miles  (if  this  had  not  been  the  case,  no  Cana- 
dian development  could  have  taken  place  on  its  present  scale),  but  it 
cannot  be  carried  about  in  ships  like  coal  or  oil.  That  is  why  the 
'spotty'  nature  of  Canada's  wartime  power  increases,  which  have 
been  concentrated  in  Quebec,  is  regarded  as  a  hindrance  to  orderly 
development.  But,  in  fact,  industries  tend  to  come  where  the  power 
is,  and  power-saturated  Quebec  is  counting  on  this. 

On  the  whole,  if  Canadian  postwar  activity  is  as  great  as  it  has 
been  during  the  war,  officials  say  there  will  be  no  surplus  power  prob- 
lem. Any  postwar  depression  will,  of  course,  tell  a  different  story, 
but  depression  has  always  meant  surplus  of  primary  power. 

But  the  power  industry  itself  is  likely  to  help  avoid  such  a  de- 
pression. In  Canada  and  elsewhere  it  has  been  demonstrated  in  the 
past  that  power  projects,  because  they  have  to  be  planned  so  far 
ahead,  are  not  thrown  into  the  wastepaper  basket  during  a  depression 
period,  as  are  the  expansion  plans  of  some  other  industries.  Conse- 
quently, they  have  been  a  stable  element  in  the  economy.  The  follow- 
ing table  of  capital  investment  in  the  power  industry  in  Canada  illus- 
trates what  happened  in  the  last  depression: 

CAPITAL    INVESTED    IN    CENTRAL   ELECTRIC    STATIONS 
(Millions  of  Dollars) 


1930  1,138 

1931  1,229 

1932     1,335 

1933  1,386 

1934 1,430 


1935  1,459 

1936 1,483 

1937  1,497 

1938 1,545 

1939    1,564 


The  very  fact  that  great  power  development  has  taken  place 
during  the  war  will  tend  to  postpone  future  development"  until  after 
the  capital  developments  of  other  industries  have  taken  place,  and  if 


JUNE.  1945 


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all  goes  well,  will  bring  them  into  play  just  as  a  turn-down  might  be 
expected. 

Only  8%  of  power  produced  in  Canada  is  consumed  in  domestic 
service;  there  is  a  wide  field  for  future  development.  Domestic  ser- 
vice customers  account  for  80%  of  the  110%  increase  in  the  number 
of  customers  for  central  electric  stations  from  1920  to  1938. 

Important  though  these  consumer  developments  are,  however, 
they  would  not  alone  solve  the  problem  of  progress  in  the  power  in- 
dustry. The  real  goal  for  the  future  lies  in  further  industrial  develop- 
ment. War  has  given  Canada  industries  into  which  she  might  never 
have  ventured.  The  chemical  industry,  the  mining  and  metallurgical 
industry  and  other  manufacturing  industries  have  grown  in  new  and 
somewhat  startling  directions. 

But  much  of  this  growth  has  been  tied  to  water  power.  Alumi- 
num, for  example,  one  of  Canada's  biggest  contributions  to  the  United 
Nations'  war  effort,  is  a  power  based  industry  requiring  about  10  kw.  h. 
for  every  pound  of  aluminum  produced.  Cheap  electrical  power  is  not 
going  to  cease  to  be  an  advantage  in  the  aluminum  production  as  soon 
as  the  war  is  over.  In  other  industries  it  is,  of  course,  less  important. 
For  example,  in  the  automotive  industry  only  about  $2.20  worth  of 
electricity  is  used  to  produce  $100  worth  of  cars.  But  even  there  if 
light  metals  such  as  aluminum  and  magnesium  are  applied  to  automo- 
tive production,  the  indirect  use  of  electricity  will  correspondingly 
be  increased.  And  with  high  levels  of  employment,  use  of  electric 
equipment  would  likely  be  increased  at  even  faster  rates. 

Canada  is  used  to  having  her  geography  dictate  her  industrial 
progress.  Sometimes  the  bald  facts  of  her  topography  make  pretty 
poor  listening.  But  when  nature  gave  Canada  a  fresh-water  area  of 
228,307  sq.  miles,  larger  than  that  of  any  other  country  and  all  above 
sea  level,  it  gave  her  a  long-term  asset.  Water  power  is  the  one  power 
resource  that  doesn't  disappear  with  use.  The  water  keeps  on  flowing 
in  nature's  own  perpetual  motion  machine.  Canada  has  done  pretty 
well  so  far  on  only  18%  of  her  potential  resources.  One  of  the  best 
guarantees  of  her  future  is  that  there  is  another  44,000,000  h.p.  to  go. 

— Financial  Post 


editor's  notp.  :  Increasing  use  of  kilowatt-hours  means  a  reduction  in  man-hours,  thus 
creating  the  present  social  paradox —  'the  more  ice  can  produce,  the  less  ice  can  con- 
sume.' The  Techrwte  is  the  solution  to  the  problem  oj  distribution  in  the  Power  Age. 


22 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


I  I    &,  I 


Mi     >VHfl 


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'  -i.'V  I  "■'. 


7 lie  St&uf  ajj  GancdUa+i  Wheat 

THE  growing  of  wheat  in  Canada  can  be  traced  back  approximately 
340  years.  A  French  settlement  in  the  Maritimes  is  reputed  to 
have  grown  wheat  in  1605  and  in  1616  Champlain  writes  of  a  fine 
sample  of  wheat  being  cut  at  Quebec  for  shipment  to  France. 

In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Canada  was  actually  ex- 
porting wheat,  shipments  in  1754  amounting  to  80,000  bushels.  New- 
foundland and  the  French  West  Indies  were  the  principal  markets  in 
which  the  wheat  was  then  sold,  but  in  1770  export  shipments  to  Great 
Britain  were  recorded. 

The  records  of  1802  show  that  between  April  5  and  July  5  of  that 
year  some  29  vessels  cleared  from  the  port  of  Quebec  with  wheat.  Of 
this  number  six  sailed  for  Barcelona,  five  for  Hull,  three  for  Cork, 
three  for  'Cork  and  a  market,'  two  each  for  Halifax,  Bristol  and  Liver- 
pool, and  one  each  for  Greenock,  Cadiz,  Sunderland,  Newfoundland, 
Jersey,  Madeira  and  Leghorn. 

But  it  was  not  until  later  in  the  nineteenth  century,  when  Western 
Canada  went  into  the  production  of  wheat,  that  the  type  known  in 
world  markets  as  'Manitobas'  put  the  hallmark  of  quality  on  Canadian 
wheat  which  the  Prairie  Provinces  today  still  jealously  guard. 

The  Lord  Selkirk  settlers  who  came  from  Scotland  to  the  Red 
River  valley  in  1812  first  introduced  wheat  growing  to  the  western 
provinces,  and  it  was  in  the  Province  of  Manitoba  that  the  strong  hard 
wheat  for  which  Canada  has  become  famous  first  made  its  appearance. 

Failures,  plagues  of  mice  and  grasshoppers,  and  floods  in  turn  de- 
stroyed the  crops  of  the  early  colonists  and  in  1868-69  wheat  for  seed 
had  to  be  brought  in  from  the  United  States.  It  is  believed  that  among 
this  wheat  was  the  seed  from  which  the  famous  'Red  Fife'  type  was 
grown.  From  this  wheat  Dr.  Saunders  produced,  between  1904  and 
1909,  the  celebrated  'Marquis'  type  upon  which  Canada  has  built  a 
worldwide  reputation  for  quality  wheat,  unsurpassed  today  in  any 
producing  country. 

The  first  shipment  of  this  superior  wheat  of  the  western  plains, 
direct  to  Great  Britain,  was  made  in  1877.  This  was  consigned  by 
Robert  Gerrie  to  Barclay  and  Brand,  Scotland,  and  went  out  by  Red 
River  steamer  to  St.  Paul,  thence  by  rail  to  seaboard. 


JUNE,  1945 


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Seven  years  later,  with  the  completion  of  the  Canadian  Pacific 
Railway  in  1884  as  far  west  as  Moose  Jaw,  the  first  shipments  of 
Western  Canada  wheat  to  Britain  by  the  all-Canada  route  was  made 
by  the  late  Thomas  Thompson  of  Thompson  &  Sons,  Brandon,  Mani- 
toba. 

This  shipment  consisted  of  1,000  bushels  of  Manitoba  No.  1  Hard. 
It  was  sacked  and  shipped  by  rail  and  water  to  seaboard.  Exactly 
21  days  after  the  movement  of  the  wheat  commenced  from  Brandon, 
it  was  landed  on  the  docks  of  Glasgow.  By  this  shipment  the  'all- 
Canada  export  route'  was  established. 

It  was  during  the  first  World  War  that  acreage  and  production 
of  wheat  in  Canada  expanded  most  rapidly,  particularly  in  the  three 
Prairie  Provinces.  The  wheat  acreage  in  1914  in  Canada  was  just 
over  10,000,000  acres,  but  in  1919  it  exceeded  19,000,000  acres.  The 
production  in  Canada  of  393,000,000  bushels  in  1915  saw  the  Prairie 
Provinces  produce  an  average  yield  of  26  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre, 
a  record  which  still  stands. 

Acreage  continued  to  expand  in  the  period  between  the  two  Great 
Wars  and  reached  the  highest  point  on  record  during  the  first  year  of 
World  War  II,  when  28,726,000  acres  were  seeded  to  wheat  in  Canada, 
and  all  but  1,000,000  acres  of  this  in  the  three  Prairie  Provinces. 

International  trade  in  wheat  witnessed  its  greatest  expansion  dur- 
ing the  ten  years  after  World  War  I.  Net  world  exports  of  wheat  and 
wheat  flour  in  the  five  years  1909-14  had  averaged  686,000,000  bushels 
annually,  but  in  the  five  years  1922-27  this  annual  average  rose  to 
777,000,000  bushels  and  during  the  crop  year  1928-29  the  all-time  record 
of  946,000,000  bushels  was  reached.  These  figures  are  taken  from  a 
statistical  record  compiled  by  the  Wheat  Advisory  Committee  in 
London,  England. 

Canada's  share  of  the  world  market  rose  steadily  during  this  post- 
war period  and  almost  43%,  or  406,000,000  bushels,  of  the  record 
total  shipped  in  the  crop  year  of  1928-29  consisted  of  Canadian  wheat 
and  wheat  flour.  Europe  had  not  yet  recovered  from  the  devastation 
of  the  1914-18  war  and  the  wheat  surplus-producing  countries  of  the 
world  enjoyed  a  very  liberal  trade  in  foodstuffs. 

Nationalistic  policies  began  to  emerge  in  the  late  twenties,  how- 
ever, and  when  the  depression  era  arrived  in  1929-30  and  reached  its 
depth  in  1932-33  there  existed  in  many  European  countries  tariffs  and 
other  obstacles  to  trade  in  wheat,  while  national  policies  were  mostly 


24 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


in  the  direction  of  subsidizing  wheat  production  at  home.  This  re- 
sulted in  contraction  of  the  market  for  Canadian  and  other  wheat 
from  overseas,  and  in  1935-36  the  total  net  exports  of  wheat  and  flour 
in  the  international  market  shrank  to  525,000,000  bushels. 

Trade  began  to  pick  up  again  in  1938-39  when  fears  of  a  second 
European  war  were  developing  and  a  number  of  countries  began 
to  lay  in  reserve  stocks.  Net  exports  of  wheat  and  flour  in  that  year 
totalled  643,000,000  bushels  and  held  close  to  that  level  in  1939-40, 
the  first  year  of  World  War  II.  Thereafter,  with  most  of  Europe  occu- 
pied by  the  Nazis,  international  trade  dwindled  rapidly  and  was  esti- 
mated at  only  360,000,000  bushels  in  the  crop  year  of  1942-43,  of  which 
Canada  furnished  215,000,000  bushels  or  about  60 %. 

A  period  of  severe  drought  in  North  America  in  the  early  thirties 
brought  about  changes  in  the  sources  of  wheat  supplies.  The  United 
States  changed  from  a  heavy  exporter  of  wheat  to  a  net  importer  for 
several  years,  but  Australia  and  Argentina,  and  for  a  short  period 
Russia,  became  competitors  of  Canada  in  the  world  market.  The 
United  States  returned  as  an  exporter  of  wheat  in  volume  in  the  two 
years  preceding  the  outbreak  of  the  second  World  War  and  in  that 
period  all  four  of  the  major  exporting  countries  found  themselves 
with  growing  surpluses  despite  the  fact  that  Canada  had  practically 
cleaned  out  all  of  her  surplus  wheat  by  the  middle  of  1938,  following 
a  crop  failure  in  1937. 

The  second  World  War  produced  many  changes  in  the  wheat  situ- 
ation. Stocks  of  surplus  wheat  were  heavy  in  the  fall  of  1939,  but  for 
the  greater  part  of  the  first  year  of  war  international  movement  of 
wheat  was  on  a  fairly  liberal  scale.  The  invasion  of  Norway,  Den- 
mark and  the  Low  Countries  in  the  spring  of  1940,  and  later  the  con- 
quest of  France,  eliminated  markets  to  which  Canadian  wheat  had 
been  sold  in  substantial  quantities  prior  to  the  war,  but  this  was  offset 
by  larger  exports  to  Great  Britain. 

The  shipping  situation  had  greatly  curtailed  the  movement  of 
wheat  from  Australia  and  Argentina,  and  the  entry  of  Japan  into  the 
war  further  aggravated  Australia's  position  as  a  wheat  exporter.  As 
a  result,  Canada  became  the  principal  source  of  supplies,  particularly 
for  the  United  Kingdom  market,  and  continued  in  the  role  into  the 
fifth  year  of  the  war. 

The  first  major  change  in  wartime  wheat  policy  in  Canada  was 
made  in  1941,  when  the  Dominion  Government  encouraged  a  reduction 


JUNE,  1945 


25 


in  the  acreage  seeded  to  wheat  by  direct  payments  to  farmers.  The 
demand  for  Canada  to  supply  live  stock  and  live-stock  products  was 
largely  responsible  for  the  shift  away  from  wheat  to  the  production 
of  feed  grains.  The  existing  reserve  stocks  of  wheat  were  large 
enough  to  permit  of  a  drastic  reduction  in  wheat  acreage  and  Canadian 
farmers  responded  to  the  new  policy  by  reducing  the  acreage  planted 
to  wheat  in  1941  by  nearly  7,000,000  acres.  Continuation  of  these 
payments  in  1943  saw  the  acreage  in  Canada  fall  to  its  lowest  level 
since  1918,  but  in  1944,  when  acreage  reduction  payments  were  dis- 
continued, a  sharp  increase  in  wheat  acreage  took  place. 

The  crop  year  1943-44  witnessed  a  phenomenal  use  of  wheat  for 
live-stock  feed,  particularly  in  the  United  States  where  feed  grain 
supplies  were  insufficient  to  maintain  the  greatly  increased  live-stock 
population.  It  became  necessary  to  substitute  wheat  for  corn  and 
other  feed  grains,  and  eventually  Canada  had  to  ship  very  large  quan- 
tities of  wheat  to  the  United  States  for  use  there  as  live-stock  feed. 
At  the  same  time  the  use  of  wheat  for  animal  feed  in  Canada  also 
increased  to  a  record  level  of  more  than  100,000,000  bushels.  Prelim- 
inary figures  for  the  twelve  months  ending  July  31,  1944,  indicate  that 
a  total  of  570,000,000  bushels  of  wheat  was  fed  to  live  stock  and  poul- 
try in  North  America  or  about  the  same  quantity  as  required  to  feed 
the  human  population.  Substantial  quantities  of  wheat  were  also  used 
for  the  production  of  industrial  alcohol  in  both  the  United  States  and 
Canada. 

Canada's  volume  of  wheat  exports  has  not  suffered  during  the 
five  years  of  war.  The  total  exports  of  wheat  and  flour  in  this  period 
actually  show  an  increase  of  about  35%  over  the  five  years  immediate- 
ly preceding  the  war,  but  the  distribution  of  these  exports  changed 
radically  in  the  war  period  for  reasons  already  mentioned. 

— Dominion  Bureau  of  Statistics 


editor's  note:  This  story  of  Canadian  wheat  growing  is  a  statistical  record  of  man's 
conquest  of  nature  in  his  fight  for  food.  It  is  a  concrete  demonstration  that  'poverty  in 
the  midst  of  plenty'  during  the  depression  Years  was  more  than  a  demagogic  phrase. 
In  fact,  only  the  Price  System  prevented  ALL  Canadians  from  enjoying  an  abundance 
of  one  of  the  most  vital  foodstuffs.  In  the  postwar  period  we  shall  again  face  the  con- 
flict between  abundance  and  price.  Will  Canadians  return,  then,  to  an  even  greater 
depression  and  chaos,  or  will  they  install  a  social  technic  of  operation  that  will  dis- 
tribute abundance  to  every  citizen? 


26 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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BY  NO  means  the  oldest  member  of  the  royal  family  of  acids,  sul- 
phuric acid  has,  nevertheless,  borne  the  king's  crown  for  centuries. 
From  a  tonnage  viewpoint  it  is  the  most  important  single  chemical  used 
in  the  production  of  war  materials,  just  as  it  is  the  most  widely  used 
chemical  in  peacetime  industry.  Yet  the  part  it  plays  as  an  industrial 
tool  in  hundreds  of  modern  manufacturing  processes  is  relatively  little 
known  to  the  layman. 

Sulphuric  acid  rarely  appears  in  the  headlines  under  its  own 
name,  but  it  not  only  helps  to  make  the  news  but  takes  a  hand  in 
bringing  it  to  you  via  your  daily  newspaper,  your  favourite  newscast, 
or  the  newsreels. 

'Allied  Tanks  Roll  Across  the  Rhine'  —  'Superforts  Bomb  Tokyo' 
—  'War's  Largest  Convoy  Reaches  Port  Intact.'  Chances  are  that  not 
a  single  pilot,  gunner  or  sailor  gives  a  thought  to  sulphuric  acid.  Yet 
in  storage  batteries  on  tanks,  aircraft  and  marine  engines  this  un- 
obstrusive  ally  is  riding  with  them  toward  victory.  At  the  same 
time  on  the  home  front  it  fills  the  role  of  industrial  genie,  able  and 
willing  to  render  service  in  countless  ways. 

Call  the  roll  of  the  most  vital  needs  of  modern  warfare.  Start, 
let  us  say,  with  aluminum,  nickel,  steel,  synthetic  rubber,  high  octane 
gasoline,  T.N.T.,  smokeless  powder  and  cordite.  Keep  in  mind  that 
their  presence  in  the  line  of  battle  is  made  possible  by  sulphuric  acid, 
and  that  the  production  of  planes,  tanks,  guns,  ships,  bombs,  explosives 
and  shells  would  come  to  an  immediate  and  jarring  halt  should  sul- 
phuric acid  fail  to  report  for  duty. 

It  is  in  the  field  of  military  explosives  that  sulphuric  acid  plays 
a  truly  kingly  role.  Thousands  of  tons  are  required  each  month  in 
the  production  of  T.N.T.,  cordite,  smokeless  powder  and  other  explos- 
ives that  represent  an  important  part  of  Canada's  contribution  to  the 
United  Nations'  arsenals.  When  the  need  arose  for  vast  quantities  of 
these  materials  for  the  armed  forces  of  Canada  and  her  allies  at  the 
outbreak  of  war  in  1939,  the  demand  for  sulphuric  acid  reached  un- 
precedented levels.  In  nitrating  toluol  in  the  production-  of  T.N.T. 
approximately  200  pounds  of  fuming  sulphuric  acid  (oleum),  mixed 
with  nitric  acid,  are  required  for  every  100  pounds  of  T.N.T.    Similarly, 


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JUNE,  1945 


27 


^H     '•'■-4?/"' 


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BBS  KM  |jf> 


J^'V- 


large  amounts  of  oleum  are  needed  in  the  nitration  of  wood  pulp  to 
nitrocellulose  (guncotton)  and  in  concentrating  nitric  acid.  A  large 
part  of  the  acid  used  in  the  nitration  processes  involved  is  recovered 
but  the  amount  of  sulphuric  acid  needed  in  the  making  of  explosives 
and  propellants  is  very  great. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  in  the  early  days  of  Canada's 
wartime  Chemical  Control,  sulphuric  acid  was  one  of  the  first  materials 
requiring  action.  Some  thought  was  given  to  rationing,  but  sulphuric 
acid  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  materals  to  allocate,  since  it  is  used 
in  almost  every  industry.  Instead,  measures  were  taken  to  augment 
the  supply.  Rate  of  production  in  existing  plants  was  increased. 
Existing  productive  capacity  was  enlarged.  Additional  plants  were 
designed,  built  and  brought  into  operation  in  record  time.  Since  the 
outbreak  of  war,  total  annual  output  of  sulphuric  acid  in  Canada  has 
increased  approximately  threefold. 

Increased  tonnage  has  been  needed  to  meet  not  only  the  demands 
of  war,  but  also  to  fill  the  requirements  of  essential  civilian  industry. 
The  largest  single  use  of  sulphuric  acid  in  both  war  and  peace  is  in  the 
production  of  fertilizer.  The  quantities  required  may  be  judged  from 
the  fact  that  in  the  manufacture  of  one  ton  of  superphosphate,  approxi- 
mately .35  tons  of  sulphuric  acid  is  used,  and  superphosphate  com- 
prises an  average  of  50%  by  weight  of  all  the  complete  fertilizers  used 
by  farmers. 

This  versatile  chemical  performs  many  useful  functions  in  the 
petroleum  industry.  Petroleum  contains  a  number  of  heavy  tarry 
compounds  which,  after  distillation,  are  removed  by  the  charring 
action  of  the  acid.  Thus,  most  of  the  waxy  and  gummy  substances  that 
tend  to  clog  carburetors  and  burners  are  eliminated.  Spectacular  in- 
creases in  the  production  of  higher  octane  aviation  fuel  have  called 
for  more  and  more  sulphuric  acid. 

Many  metallurgical  processes  drink  up  tons  of  sulphuric  acid.  In 
the  steel  mills,  this  acid  is  of  vital  importance  in  cleaning  the  surface 
of  the  sheet  metal  before  covering  the  steel  with  a  layer  of  zinc  (gal- 
vanizing) or  tin  (tin-plating).  It  is  used  in  large  quantities  in  refining 
copper  and  nickel  and  in  the  treatment  of  copper,  zinc  and  vanadium 
ores,  and  in  smaller  quantities  for  pickling  in  brass  mills. 

As  a  chemical  reagent,  as  a  drying  medium,  as  an  electrolyte,  as  a 
cleansing  and  purifying  agent,  sulphuric  acid  has  properties  which, 
though  not  glamorous,  are  indispensible  in  many  processes.    The  effec- 


28 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


tiveness  of  sulphuric  acid  in  many  common  chemical  processes  de- 
pends on  its  power  of  liberating  other  acids  from  their  compounds. 
Its  value  in  organic  chemistry  depends  in  part  on  its  affinity  for  water 
(whence  its  use  in  nitration  processes),  on  its  power  of  forming  sul- 
phonic  acids  with  aromatic  compounds,  and  on  its  ability  to  react 
with  alcohols  to  form  esters. 

Superior  paints  and  pigments,  lovely  rayons  and  other  textiles, 
durable  adhesives  and  radium  all  rely  upon  sulphuric  acid  at  some 
stage  of  their  processing.  The  king  of  chemicals  is  an  important 
agent  in  the  production  of  cellulosic  and  petroleum-base  plastics, 
and  converts  ammonia  from  coke  into  ammonium  sulphate  which  is 
an  important  source  of  fertilizer  nitrogen.  It  is  used  in  the  making 
of  glue  and  gelatine,  in  the  recovery  of  fatty  acids  and  in  the  making 
of  parchment  paper.     It  is  even  an  effective  weed  killer! 

Undramatically,  sulphuric  acid  helps  to  grow  food  for  your 
table;  to  produce  synthetic  rubber  for  the  bus  that  brought  you  to 
work  this  morning;  to  speed  gleaming,  sanitary  'Cellophane'  for  the 
wrap  on  your  package  of  cigarettes;  to  tan  the  leather  in  baby's  new 
shoes. 

In  short,  sulphuric  acid  is  of  such  importance  that  its  manu- 
facture is  fundamental  in  the  industrial  cycle. 

The  starting  point  for  the  manufacture  of  sulphuric  acid  is  sul- 
phur, whether  that  element  is  in  the  form  of  brimstone  or  sulphur- 
bearing  ores.  There  are  two  major  processes  in  use  today,  chamber 
and  contact.  In  the  chamber  process  the  sulphur  or  sulphur-bearing 
ore  is  burned  to  sulphur  dioxide.  By  means  of  nitrogen  oxides  and 
water  this  sulphur  dioxide  is  changed  to  sulphuric  acid,  the  nitro- 
gen oxides  acting  as  a  catalyst.  In  the  contact  process  the  sulphur 
dioxide  is  passed  over  another  type  of  catalyst  such  as  platinum  or 
vanadium.  The  dioxide  is  then  changed  to  trioxide.  This  sulphur 
trioxide  is  united  with  water  in  a  special  way  to  make  sulphuric 
acid  of  commerce.  So  much  oxygen  and  water  combine  with  sul- 
phur to  make  the  acid  that  the  finished  product  leaves  the  plant 
weighing  some  three  times  as  much  as  the  sulphur  content  of  the 
raw  material. 

Transportation  of  sulphuric  acid  is  no  simple  matter.  Because 
storage  would  be  uneconomical,  it  is  produced  as  it  is  required  for 
direct  consumption.  The  dangerously  corrosive  and  burning  acid  is 
tough    to    handle    compared    with    the    relatively    innocuous    sulphur 


JUNE,  1915 


29 


from  which  it  is  made,  and  the  great  bulk  of  the  acid  is  transported 
in  steel  tank  cars.  The  fleet  of  these  cars  travelling  out  of  C-I-L's 
Hamilton  and  Copper  Cliff  plants  averages  72,000  miles  a  month  in 
serving  key  industrial  centres  across  Canada.  Small  quantity  users 
are  supplied  by  means  of  carboys,  which  are  heavy  ten-gallon  glass 
containers  packed  in  wooden  crates. 

One  might  wonder  why  sulphuric  acid,  being  a  corrosive  liquid 
regularly  used  for  pickling  steel,  can  be  shipped  in  steel  tank  cars. 
The  acid  has  physical  properties  varying  with  strength.  Generally 
speaking,  at  ordinary  temperatures  a  weak  sulphuric  water  solution 
up  to  about  70  %  dissolves  steel;  from  70  to  85%  it  attacks  steel 
mildy  and  from  85%  on  the  attack  is  negligible. 

Because  it  enters  into  so  many  varied  manufacturing  processes, 
variations  in  sulphuric  acid  production  serve  as  a  valuable  and  res- 
pected barometer  of  the  nation's  prosperity.  It  was  with  good  reason 
than  an  eminent  economist  once  said,  'Tell  me  the  amount  of  sul- 
phuric acid  produced  in  a  country  and  I  will  tell  you  the  extent  of 
that  country's  industrialization.'  — P.  B.  Dunstan  in  C-I-L  Oval 

editor's  note:  Every  scientific  achievement  in  the  field  of  production  brings  us 
nearer  to  the  day  ivhen  we  must  discard  business  and  politics  and  institute  technolog- 
ical control  of  social  operations. 


INVARIABLY  a  program  designed  to  achieve  benefits  in  a  given 
direction  will  be  found  to  produce  additional  useful  results  which 
perhaps  were  not  at  first  contemplated.  That  is  the  nature  of  con- 
structive effort.  Benefits  multiply.  This  axiom  has  been  especially 
pronounced  in  the  case  of  the  systematic  research  campaign  begun 
7  years  ago  by  California  Institute  of  Technology  at  Pasadena,  in 
exploration  of  the  possibilities  for  new  industrial  uses  of  silver. 

Out  of  this  program  have  come  developments  in  the  past  year 
that  are  of  great  importance  to  the  manufacture  and  use  of  sanitary 
paper  wrappings  and  containers  for  foods. 

The  research  activities  were  initiated  by  Robert  M.  Hardy,  presi- 
dent  of   Sunshine   Mining   Co.,    in   setting  up   a   substantial   financial 


30 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


foundation  involving  a  program  conducted  by  Robert  A.  Millikan, 
chairman  of  the  executive  council  of  the  California  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology, and  Dr.  Alexander  Goetz,  director  of  the  Rare  Metals  Institute 
of  CIT.  Dr.  Goetz  was  in  charge  of  investigations,  which  included 
studies  of  the  effects  produced  by  small  silver  ion  concentrations  in 
water  purification,  the  use  of  silver  for  rendering  ocean  water  drink- 
able, utilization  of  its  compounds  as  a  protection  against  metal  cor- 
rosion caused  by  brine,  and  the  composition  of  minute  traces  of  silver 
with  various  neutral  materials  to  produce  self -sterilizing  surfaces. 

It  is  the  latter  activity  which  concerns  the  production  and  use 
of  food  wrappings  and  containers.  Manufacturers  of  these  products 
have  long  recognized  the  importance  of  the  bacteriological  danger. 
It  was  brought  into  the  limelight  some  years  ago  when  the  use  of 
paper  drinking  cups  began  to  reach  tremendous  proportions.  Govern- 
ment regulations  had  stipulated  a  high  degree  of  purity  of  the  water 
used  in  forming  the  pulp  intended  for  drinking  cup  manufacture — a 
fact  which  explains  why  mills  producing  paper  for  such  purposes  are 
located  only  at  water  supply  sources  having  a  purity  analysis  that 
meets  the  government  specifications. 

To  the  credit  of  the  manufacturers  of  various  kinds  of  paper 
wrappings  and  paperboards  it  can  be  said  that  they,  too,  have  done 
everything  in  their  power  to  turn  out  highly  sanitary  products.  It 
has  been  shown  that  more  than  100,000  organisms  can  be  picked  from 
a  square  inch  of  a  surface  that  has  been  stored  under  unsanitary 
conditions. 

New  material  developed  in  the  laboratory  of  Rare  Metals  Insti- 
tute by  Dr.  Goetz  and  his  scientific  collaborators  have  proven,  under 
strenuous  tests,  to  possess  strong  germicidal  action  without  being  toxic 
or  imparting  any  taste  or  odor. 

Furthermore,  certain  plastics  have  been  developed  into  which 
these  mediums  can  be  incorporated  as  pigments,  so  as  to  form  a  syn- 
thetic varnish,  lacquer  or  paint  which,  bonded  on  a  surface  by  brush- 
ing, printing,  spraying  or  dipping,  will  produce  a  coating  on  which 
no  bacteria  can  live  more  than  a  few  minutes. 

The  coating  is  in  no  way  injurious  to  human  beings  and  does  not 
spoil  the  flavor  or  taste  of  food  materials  brought  into  contact  with  it. 
For  instance,  it  is  pointed  out  that  cheese  and  butter,  wrapped  in 
paper  or  cellophane  that  has  been  coated  with  the  new  material,  will 
keep  free  from  mold  growth  much  longer — perhaps  an  additional  two 


JUNE,  1945 


31 


or  three  weeks — under  customary  handling  conditions,  even  if  the 
wrapper  is  exposed  to  unsanitary  conditions. 

The  coating  is  insoluble  in  water,  but  has  by  itself  no  moisture- 
proofing  qualities.  It  can,  however,  be  applied  to  moisture-proof  base 
materials  or  in  addition  to  moisture-proofing  coatings,  on  such  types 
of  surfaces  as  paper,  fabrics,  cellophane,  Pliofilm,  glass,  wood,  porce- 
lain, ceramics,  most  metals  and  to  laminated  products  like  artificial 
leather. 

An  important  characteristic  is  that  a  specific  kind  of  coating 
material  is  required  for  a  particular  kind  of  base.  A  material  that  is 
suitable  for  cellophane,  for  instance,  would  not  necessarily  be  satis- 
factory for  Pliofilm.  The  total  quantity  of  silver  which  the  surface 
material  must  contain  varies  widely  with  the  intended  use  of  the  sur- 
face and  with  its  extended  degree  of  germicidal  performance.  The 
spreading  factor  of  these  pigmented  plastics  is  quite  large,  illustrated 
by  the  fact  that  one  pound  of  this  material  without  solvent  is  capable  of 
covering  satisfactorily  about  2,000  square  feet  of  cellophane  for 
wrapping  purposes. 

The  cause  of  the  germicidal  performance  of  these  coatings  is  of 
a  highly  technical  nature,  but  a  layman's  explanation  would  be  about 
as  follows:  While  an  extremely  small  quantity  of  ionized  silver  is 
highly  effective  in  the  killing  of  germs,  a  lasting  self-sterilizing  surface 
depends  on  corporation  of  an  adequate  supply  of  atomic  silver  under 
the  outer  skin  or  surface  of  the  coating,  together  with  a  large  supply 
of  an  oxidizing  agent,  which  acts  to  replenish  the  surface  continually. 
This  under-surface  supply  of  silver  and  oxygen  is  necessary  because 
many  organic  colloids,  especially  the  proteins  rich  in  sulphur,  would 
disactivate  the  surface  unless  a  process  of  replacement  and  oxidation 
was  provided  for. 

Consequently  it  is  necessary  to  use  a  surfacing  material  which 
accomplishes  five  things,  namely: 

1.  Exposes  at  the  surface  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  minute 
silver  content  in  the  coating. 

2.  Holds  this  fraction  in  a  form  practically  insoluble  in  water, 
but  available  to  proteins. 

3.  Renders  it  available  to  contacting  organic  matter. 

4.  Protects  the  unexposed  supply  against  chemical  attack. 

5.  Permits  replacement  and  reactivation  by  diffusion. 

It  is  possible  to  vary  the  rate  of  replacement  by  the  choice  of  the 


32 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


Hi 


F 


proper  resin  and  its  concentration  and  the  quality  and  type  of  filling 
material.  The  resin  also  contains  stabilizing  and  plasticizing  sub- 
stances; neutral  filling  materials  are  required  where  a  protection  of 
the  interior  of  the  material  against  photo  chemical  effects  on  the  silver 
content  is  needed. 

A  surface  coming  in  contact  with  wet  foods  having  a  large  protein 
content  will  require  a  higher  replacement  rate  but  a  low  water  permea- 
bility in  order  to  prevent  premature  exhaustion  of  the  silver  supply  in 
the  coating,  whereas  dry  surfaces  require  a  certain  property  of  water 
retention.  It  is  obvious  that  a  surface  material  which  has  to  sterilize 
only  once,  as  is  the  case  in  expendible  food  packaging,  has  to  have 
those  qualities  to  a  very  much  lesser  degree  than  materials  which  have 
to  act  over  and  over  again. 

Therefore  in  determining  the  particular  kind  of  coating  for  a  given 
purpose,  it  is  necessary  to  strike  a  compromise  between  the  rate  of 
sterilization  per  unit  area,  the  rate  of  replacement  and  the  length  of 
service  the  surface  is  intended  to  give. 

The  killing  of  mold  is  quite  different  from  the  destruction  of  bac- 
teria, but  the  material  is  none  the  less  effective.  Laboratory  tests  con- 
ducted for  over  a  year  gave  definite  results.  Inch-square  areas  on  cel- 
lophane treated  with  the  coating  materials  were  free  from  mold,  though 
completely  surrounded  by  mold  cultures  implanted  for  test  purposes. 
In  some  cases  the  mold  was  so  thick  that  it  slightly  overlapped  the  bor- 
der of  the  treated  areas,  but  in  no  case  ventured  farther  than  the  outer 
edge. 

Mold  suspensions  containing  high  concentrates  of  spores  are  quick- 
ly sterilized  in  all  suspending  media  except  nutrient  broth  and  milk.  It 
takes  15  to  30  minutes  to  kill  bacteria  on  a  surface  suspended  in  milk, 
as  compared  to  about  2  minutes  in  water.  This  illustrates  the  greater 
resistance  to  bacteria  when  milk  is  the  food  product  to  be  packaged. 
Nevertheless  the  coating  does  kill  the  germs,  which  after  all  is  the  im- 
portant thing. 

In  connection  with  the  use  of  this  material  for  coating  the  inside 
of  paper  milk  bottles,  it  must  be  considered  that  the  material  is  dull 
black  and  opaque,  consequently  there  may  be  room  for  doubt  as  to 
whether  housewives  will  accept  milk  if  paper  bottles  have  a  black  in- 
terior. Time  will  tell. 

Also,  the  black  color  of  the  coating  material  might  be  objected  to 
by  those  packagers  of  food  products  who  depend  largely  on  the  visibil- 


JUNE,  1945 


33 


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ity  feature  to  sell  the  merchandise..  Time  will  have  to  settle  that  ques- 
tion, too.  But  transparency  in  many  cases  is  undesirable  because  the 
ultra-violet  rays  in  light  deteriorate  some  foods,  therefore  it  is  neces- 
sary to  pack  them  in  tinfoil,  tin  cans,  opaque  paper  bags  or  containers 
made  of  paperboard. 

However,  in  offsetting  the  lack  of  visibility  is  the  fact  that  the 
black  color  of  the  coating  offers  an  excellent  background  for  colored 
labels  printed  on  cellophane  or  other  transparent  papers.  Or,  if  black 
is  not  desired  as  a  background,  white  or  any  preferred  color  may  be 
used  between  the  design  of  the  label  and  the  coating  material  with  at- 
tractive results. 

As  a  sanitary  coating  material  for  the  interior  of  containers  of  bulk 
foods,  there  can  be  little  doubt  of  its  cordial  reception  by  all  concerned. 
The  black  color  of  the  coating  should  not  be  objectionable  to  hotels, 
institutions  and  other  large  users  of  bulk  foods.  In  fact  it  is  a  reminder 
that  the  container  has  been  specially  treated  to  kill  germs. 

Furthermore,  a  potential  market  of  huge  proportions  is  indicated 
by  the  tremendous  growth  of  the  cold-packing  industry  in  recent  years. 
Frozen  foods,  stored  at  harvest  time  and  released  to  consumers  as  re- 
quired, serve  to  stabilize  the  market  both  as  to  supply  and  prices,  and 
the  cold-storage  system  may  even  be  the  means  of  preventing  large- 
scale  field  spoilage  of  food  when  conditions  make  it  impossible  to  pro- 
cess or  market  it  immediately. 

The  larger  containers  hold  about  30  pounds  of  food  and  should  be 
interior-coated  after  the  container  is  manufactured.  It  is  of  course  pos- 
sible to  coat  the  paper  prior  to  its  conversion  into  containers,  but  the 
conversion  process  undoubtedly  would  cause  breaks  in  the  coating  and 
thus  impair  its  efficiency. 

An  important  consideration  is  the  extremely  low  cost  of  the  coat- 
ing material.  A  small  quantity  spreads  over  a  surprisingly  large  area 
and,  compared  to  the  value  of  the  service  rendered,  the  coat  of  the  sur- 
face material  is  practically  negligible. 

The  choice  of  silver  as  the  base  material  is  dictated  by  its  advan- 
tage. While  both  gold  and  copper  share  the  germicidal  property,  silver 
is  preferable  because  of  its  lack  of  toxicity  as  compared  to  copper  and 
its  lower  cost  than  gold.  — Pulp  &  Paper  Industry 


Editor's  Note:  Quietly  and  tirelessly,  our  technologists  are  introducing  new  scientific 
developments  which  will  add  to  our  living  comforts.  They  will  be  the  leaders  of  a 
new  civilization. 


34 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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{Continued  from  Page  Eighteen* 

we  advance,  not  only  will  it  not 
be  true:  it  will  be  remembered 
as  a  superstition.  Already  we 
know  better.  The  disparity  be- 
tween what  we  know  and  what 
we  do  is  the  supreme  tragedy. 

Liberating  knowledge — it  is 
scientific  knowledge  we  speak  of 
— does  not  come  as  revelation.  It 
grows  by  accretion.  Its  begin- 
nings very  often  seem  frivolous. 

What  happened  to  the  ivory 
trade?  Man  wanted  more  and 
more  ivory,  especially  for  billiard 
balls,  and  the  supply  was  failing. 
It  would  not  pay  to  cultivate  ele- 
phants for  the  tusks;  besides,  it 
was  perhaps  impossible  ever  to 
get  enough  that  way.  Where  did 
ivory  came  from?  Not  from  the 
elephant,  really,  but  from  what 
the  elephant  ate.  What  the  ele- 
phant ate  was  grass.  Therefore 
ivory  was  from  grass.  The  ele- 
phant was  merely  a  natural 
chemical  works,  converting  some- 
thing that  was  in  grass  into  a 
thing  called  ivory.  Even  then 
one  might  have  been  sure  that 
when  the  demand  for  more  ivory, 
or  for  something  that  would  do 
in  place  of  it,  became  very  urgent, 
so  that  the  incentive  was  high, 
a  brooding  chemist  would  begin 
to  think  like  that  and  end  by 
finding  what  that  something  was. 
in  the  grass  the  elephant  ate,  that 
made    ivory.      At   any   rate,    that 


happened.  He  found  it.  And 
then  it  was  possible  to  do  pur- 
posefully in  an  artificial  labora- 
tory what  the  elephant  does 
naturally  without  knowing  how. 
After  that  there  were  plenty  of 
cheap  billiard  balls. 

Such,  very  roughly,  was  the 
beginning  of  plastics,  and  yet  it 
is  only  now,  under  stress  of  ne- 
cessity, that  we  perceive  the 
possibilities  of  plastics  in  struc- 
tural uses,  in  place  of  natural  raw 
materials  like  iron  and  lumber. 
Now  we  begin  to  see  plastic  auto- 
mobiles, plastic  airplanes,  plastic 
houses,  even  to  imagine  plastic 
cities  and  to  speak  of  the  plastics 
age,  as  once  we  spoke  of  the  iron 
age  and  then  of  the  steel  age.  And 
the  source  of  this  amazing,  versa- 
tile material  is  as  free  and  as 
wide  as  air  and  sunshine. 

For  many  years  one  of  the  great 
driving  gears  of  the  international 
trade  machine  was  named  tex- 
tiles. The  people  who  had  in- 
vented and  perfected  textile- 
making  machinery,  especially  at 
first  the  British,  imported  the 
raw  fibrous  materials,  such  as 
cotton  and  wool,  made  them  into 
cloth,  and  exported  the  cloth  to 
all  parts  of  the  world.  Among 
the  principal  buyers  were  those 
who  produced  only  the  natural 
fibers  and  made  no  "cloth  for 
themselves.  Anyone  looking  at 
this  situation  might  have  believed 


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JUNE,  1945 


35 


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it  was  permanent.  It  represented 
a  division  of  labor  between 
peoples — those  who  had  the  suit- 
able areas  and  climate  to  produce 
the  fibers  and  those  who  had  the 
textile  machines  to  make  the 
cloth.  One  result  was  that  the 
common  kinds  of  cloth  were  very 
cheap.  And  how  else  but  by  this 
division  of  labor  and  this  ex- 
change could  the  world  be  well 
and  cheaply  clothed? 

Then  the  meddling  chemists, 
with  nothing  better  to  do,  and 
only  to  see  if  they  could,  found  a 
way  to  make  textiles  without 
natural  fibers — that  is,  without 
wool,  flax,  cotton,  or  silk.  They 
could  make  it  out  of  a  chemical 
mess  that  lay  at  the  cellular  base 
of  all  plant  life;  and  as  they  went 
on,  they  found  they  could  make 
it  out  of  coal  and  air  and  water, 
or  out  of  sand.  But  they  needed 
a  machine,  too;  and  impish  mech- 
anics obliged  them  by  inventing 
a  machine  that  is  in  fact  an  im- 
mense silkworm,  to  spin  their 
sticky  stuff  into  threads. 

For  a  generation  we  have  been 
staring,  with  a  kind  of  stupid 
wonder,  at  the  prodigious  rise  of 
the  artificial  textile  industries, 
loath  to  accept  the  economic  im- 
plications; so  loath,  in  fact,  that 
governments  have  subsidized 
with  public  funds — what?  Not 
the  artificial  textile  industries, 
but  the  culture  of  natural  fibers, 


like  cotton,  because  the  producers 
were  being  damaged  by  the  com- 
petition. 

Until  World  War  I,  the  first  an- 
xiety of  any  nation  thinking  of 
war  was  about  nitrates.  Without 
nitrates  high  explosives  could  not 
be  made.  The  one  natural  source 
of  this  essential  material  in  great 
quantities  was  a  rainless  Chilean 
desert  on  the  western  side  of  the 
Andes,  where  for  many  ages  bird 
guano  had  been  deposited  until 
there  was  a  bed  of  it  two  miles 
wide,  two  hundred  miles  long, 
and  five  feet  deep.  Before  World 
War  I,  both  Germany  and  Eng- 
land accumulated  great  piles  of 
this  Chilean  guano,  but  not  en- 
ough. No  sooner  had  they  be- 
gun to  shoot  it  at  one  another 
than  they  realized  that  they  had 
greatly  underestimated  the  a- 
mount  of  high  explosives  they 
were  going  to  need.  The  German 
Navy  tried  to  blockade  the  Chil- 
ean coast,  to  keep  England  from 
getting  any  more.  The  British 
Navy  had  the  same  thought  at 
the  same  time,  and  won. 

Yet  all  of  this  was  time  and 
energy  wasted.  When  Germany 
was  cut  off  from  the  Chilean  nit- 
rates, she  remembered  that  her 
scientists  knew  a  way  of  filching 
nitrogen  out  of  the  free  air.  They 
got  from  the  air  all  the  nitrates 
they  needed  for  the  duration  of 
the   war,   and  since  then   all  na- 


36 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


HEmHjBF 


tions  have  been  getting  their  nit- 
rates from  the  air. 

Only  two  or  three  years  ago  it 
would  have  seemed  that  a  plan 
of  grand  strategy  for  a  mechan- 
ized war  could  be  based  on  rub- 
ber alone.  No  nation  without  rub- 
ber could  go  far  with  mechanized 
warfare.  Its  system  of  motor 
transport  would  break  down.  In- 
deed, Japan's  strategy  was  aimed 
at  getting  control  of  the  rubber 
of  Asia.  Her  success  in  cutting 
off  both  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  from  their  principal 
sources  of  supply  might  have 
been  for  us  a  major  military  dis- 
aster. But  fortunately,  we  al- 
ready knew  how  to  make  artifi- 
cial rubber.  We  had  never  done 
it,  but  we  had  the  formulas,  the 
chemical  knowledge,  and  the 
materials.  What  materials?  Pet- 
roleum is  one.  Alcohol  is  an- 
other. Petroleum  comes  out  of 
the  ground,  and  we  happen  to 
have  more  of  it  than  anyone  else 
in  the  world.  But  alcohol  comes 
from  wheat  or  corn  or  potatoes 
or  cane.  We  can  plant  and  reap 
it,  as  much  as  we  need,  and  so 
can  anyone  else.  We  are  going 
to  use  both  for  making  rubber; 
and  if  the  war  continues  for  a 
year  more — that  is  to  say,  if  the 
necessity  continues — we  who 
were  the  largest  buyers  and  con- 
sumers of  rubber  from  Asia  need 
never    buy   another   pound   of   it 

JUNE,  1945 


there. 

In  the  same  way,  a  plan  of 
grand  strategy  might  have  been 
based  on  oil.  That  in  fact  was 
done  many  times.  There  was  a 
world  struggle  for  oil.  Possession 
and  control  of  its  sources  was  the 
great  aim  of  power  politics.  Be- 
fore oil  it  was  coal.  For  nearly 
a  century  Britain's  superior  coal 
measures  were  one  of  her  four 
aces  in  the  game  of  foreign  policy. 

Why  are  coal  and  oil  so  import- 
ant? Because  they  contain  and 
can  be  made  to  release  solar  en- 
ergy that  was  caught  and  turned 
cold  in  the  crust  of  the  earth  mil- 
lions of  years  ago.  One  is  solid. 
The  other  is  fluid.  They  are  so 
much  alike  in  chemical  nature 
that  both  can  be  made  to  do  the 
same  work.  Yet  neither  coal  nor 
oil  is  a  source  of  energy.  They 
only  store  it.  The  source  is  sun- 
shine. 

What  so  suddenly  invested  pet- 
roleum with  its  supreme  import- 
ance was  the  arrival  of  the  in- 
ternal combustion  engine.  Motor 
transport  and  aviation  both  rest 
upon  it. 

Imagine,  then,  that  all  the  oil 
wells  of  the  world  go  dry.  There 
is  no  more  petroleum.  In  that 
event,  should  we  have  to  abandon 
the  internal  combustion  engine? 
Should  we  lose  the  "power  of 
wings  and  fall  out  of  the  sky? 
Not    at    all.      Two    things    would 


37 


happen,  both  of  them  relatively 
simple.  The  engineers  would  re- 
design the  engine,  and  for  this 
redesigned  engine  the  chemist 
would  design  the  fuel. 

You  understand,  of  course, 
what  it  means  to  say  the  engin- 
eers would  redesign  the  engine. 
They  might  have  to  change  the 
length  of  the  piston  stroke  and 
the  diameter  of  the  cylinder  and 
modify  the  carburetor,  and  so  on. 
But  do  you  understand  so  well 
what  it  means  to  say  the  chemist 
would  design  the  fuel?  Mark  it. 
For  upon  that  one  point  the  age 
of  alchemy  revolves. 

Hitherto  man  has  acted  on  the 
outwardness  of  matter  as  he 
found  it,  not  upon  the  inward- 
ness of  it.  That  is  to  say,  he  has 
accepted  matter  in  its  natural 
forms  as  nature  left  it,  and  has 
adapted  his  ends  to  the  limita- 
tions of  matter  in  those  natural 
forms.  Thus,  petroleum  as  he 
found  it  was  not  the  ideal  fuel 
for  the  internal  combustion  en- 
gine; it  was  only  the  most  abund- 
ant and  the  most  available,  and 
he  adapted  his  engine  to  it. 

Now,  however,  he  acts  upon 
the  inwardness  of  matter,  to 
change  the  form  of  it  as  he  likes, 
so  that,  instead  of  adapting  his 
ends  to  the  means,  he  may  adapt 
the  means  to  his  fantastic  ends. 
He  finds  that  matter  in  any  one 
of  its  natural  forms  is  what  it  is 


because  its  molecules  have  a  cer- 
tain internal  atomic  structure. 
That  fact  is  no  longer  final.  He 
can  alter  the  fact. 

He  has  never  seen  that  internal 
structure  of  the  molecule.  Never- 
theless, he  can  draw  a  picture  of 
it.  Then  he  makes  the  astonish- 
ing discovery  that  he  can  change 
the  picture.  That  is  to  say,  he 
can  redesign  the  molecule.  He 
can  break  it  down  and  build  it  up 
again  to  another  design;  and  as 
he  does  this  to  the  molecule,  the 
form  of  matter  he  wants  is  bound 
to  appear. 

Is  it  rubber  he  wants?  Suppose 
there  is  not  enough  of  it  in  the 
natural  form  or  he  has  been  cut 
off  from  the  source  of  it.  But  he 
knows  that  rubber  is  rubber  only 
because  its  molecules  have  a  cer- 
tain internal  design.  All  around 
him  is  other  matter  full  of  mole- 
cules that  can  be  redesigned;  and 
when  to  the  molecules  of  this 
other  matter  he  has  imparted  the 
rubber  design,  lo!  there  is  the 
rubber  itself. 

Is  it  energy  he  wants — energy 
in  liquid  form  that  can  be  carried 
about  in  tanks,  like  petroleum? 
He  may  have  no  petroleum  of 
his  own  or,  again,  not  enough  of 
it.  He  notes  that  sunshine  still 
falls  upon  the  earth  as  it  did 
when  solar  energy  was  being 
stored  in  coal  and  oil.  From  there 
he  goes  to  find  that  there  is  an 


38 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


w3L 


I 


annual  catch  and  store  of  it  in 
plant  life.  When  he  has  made  al- 
cohol from  the  plant,  he  has  solar 
energy  again  in  liquid  form. 
Thus  he  can  reap  it  in  the  fields 
instead  of  digging  it  from  the 
ground. 

There  is  more.  Hitherto,  when 
man  for  his  ingenious  ends  has 
wanted  a  material  that  was  very 
hard  or  one  that  was  very  tough, 
he  has  had  to  find  the  hardest 
or  toughest  substance  that  occur- 
red in  the  natural  form  and  make 
it  do;  but  now  he  says  only  that 
he  wants  something  this  is  so  hard 
or  something  that  is  so  tough,  and 
that  it  must  be  able  to  resist  heat 
and  cold  to  certain  degrees,  and 
the  chemist  undertakes  to  pro- 
duce it  artificially.  When  he  has 
produced  it  he  gives  it  a  name, 
and  it  is  a  name  strange  to  nature 
Again  he  has  redesigned  the 
molecule,  and  this  time  to  a  pat- 
tern nature  never  thought  of. 

And  now  do  we  know  what  we 
mean  when  we  speak  of  raw 
materials?     Do  we  mean  matter 


in  certain  natural  forms,  as  na- 
ture made  them  and  where  she 
accidentally  put  them?  Or  do 
we  mean  just  matter,  which  is 
everywhere  ? 

Man  acting  upon  his  environ- 
ment to  alter  it  and  man  acting 
upon  matter  to  change  its  forms 
are  as  of  two  different  species. 
Given  now  the  carbohydrates, 
vegetable  oils,  the  alcohols,  sun- 
shine, air,  land,  and  water,  it  is 
possible  for  him  to  shape  matter 
in  whatever  form  he  likes — or 
nearly  so. 

What  vistas  are  these,  to  be 
widened  and  lengthened  by  the 
necessities  of  a  war  which,  in  so 
iar  as  it  represents  a  struggle  for 
the  sources  of  natural  raw  materi- 
als and  for  markets,  may  be  al- 
ready obsolete  in  time  and  mean- 
ing! If  this  time  the  human  en- 
igma does  not  blow  himself  off 
the  earth,  he  may  come  to  a  fut- 
ure such  as  he  has  not  dared  to 
dream  of,  and,  for  all  his  folly,  a 
future  of  his  own  making. 

— Garet  Garrett 


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if  THE  NEXT  TWO  DECADES  will  pose  with  new  insistence  the  pertinent  ques- 
tions of  this  age  which  have  hitherto  been  shelved  or  evaded:  Is  man  ready  for  the 
■ge  of  power?  Can  he  release  it  in  a  framework  of  justice,  material  plenty  and 
universal  freedom?  If  he  fails  to  answer  in  the  affirmative,  an  era  of  chaos  will 
auswer  in  the  negative  and  power,  naked  and  uncontrolled,  will  destroy  all  that  men 
have  sought  to  build.  — Stanley  McConnell  in  Saturday  Night 

*  THE  TREND  IN  GENERATORS  for  aircraft  was  succinctly  summed"  up  by  an 
engineer  as  'proceeding  rapidly  in  opposite  directions,  toward  greatly  increased  power 
output  and  at  the  same  time,  toward  zero  weight.' 

— Westinchouse    Wartime    Engineering 


JC'NE,  1945 


mm-. 


.     '  r 


39 


Hi  ^rrarrihiKi  ii  frt 


^■1 


The  Case  for  Copper 


From  the  point  of  view  of  the  technologist,  copper  is  a  wonderful 
metal  because  of  its  permanency;  to  the  businessman,  it  is  an  un- 
sound money-making  investment.  This  article  clearly  demonstrates 
the  difference  between  what  Veblen  called  'serviceability'  and 
'vendability.' 


COPPER  has  meant  a  lot  of 
different  things  to  a  lot  of 
different  people  for  more  than 
ten  thousand  years.  To  the  men 
who  have  mined  and  refined  it — 
it  has  been  a  living,  if  a  hard  one. 
To  the  men  who  have  financed 
the  mining  and  refining  of  it — it 
has  been  a  gamble.  To  the  men 
whose  needs  have  demanded 
copper's  inherent  qualities  as  a 
metal,  it  has  been  a  friend. 

If  you  had  asked  me,  two  and 
a  half  years  ago,  what  I  thought 
about  copper,  I  probably  would 
have  said,  with  feeling:  T  don't 
like  it.     It's  tough  stuff  to  muck.' 

Because  copper,  as  I  knew  it 
in  those  days,  meant  copper  sul- 
phide— that  rough,  dirty,  ex- 
tremely heavy  ore  that  faced  me 
daily  in  enormous  gassy  heaps  a 
black  half-mile  underground;  be- 
cause it  always  had  to  be  dug 
loose  and  shovelled  into  cars — 
by  me;  because  after  shift,  in  the 
showers,  it  was  always  a  toss-up 
whether  more  hide  than  copper 
came  off  with  the  scrubbing. 
Mostly,  we  stayed  dirty. 


Reprinted   from    Manufacturing    &    In- 
dustrial Engineering. 


Now,  however,  I'm  inclined  to 
think  that  my  reasons  for  dis- 
liking copper  so  heartily  two  and 
a  half  years  ago  don't  add  up  to 
anything  actually  being  the  mat- 
ter with  copper.  I'm  inclined  to 
think,  these  days,  that  if  there  is 
anything  at  all  wrong  with  cop- 
per, it  might  be  that  copper  is  too 
good  for  its  own  good. 

For  example,  take  that  length 
of  copper  pipe  dug  up  near  the 
Great  Pyramid  of  the  Egyptian 
Pharaoh  Cheops,  located  at  Ghi- 
zeh,  on  the  Nile.  That  particular 
piece  of  pipe  originally  conveyed 
water  from  the  river  to  the  royal 
pool.  It  is  more  than  5,400  years 
old.     It  will  still  carry  water. 

When  they  finally  opened  the 
door  to  the  tomb  of  Pharaoh  Tut- 
ankh-Amen  several  years  ago,  the 
3,500-year-old  bronze  hinges 
swung  true. 

A  copper  frying  pan  was  dis- 
covered some  time  ago  at  Tepe 
Gawra.  It  is  about  5,000  years 
old,  yet  is  a  good  looking  frying 
pan,  and  still  serviceable. 

The  man  who  finances  the 
mining  and  refining  of  copper, 
recalling     these     things,     would 


40 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■ 


l^^l  Hi 


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■ 


probably  think,  'Is  anybody  going 
to  make  a  fortune  waiting  for  re- 
placement business  on  equipment 
that  lasts  that  long?' 

And  the  man  who  needs  cop- 
per equipment,  recalling  these 
things,  would  probably  think,  'I 
like  it.' 

The  stability  of  copper's  im- 
portance in  what  we  call  civilized 
living  arises  largely  out  of  cop- 
per's inherent  qualities,  and  the 
fact  that  it  was  in  on  the  ground 
floor.  Its  development  as  a  com- 
modity has  been  every  bit  as 
slow  and  certain  as  the  develop- 
ment of  civilization;  its  applica- 
tions have  increased  only  when 
man's  needs  have  increased.  Its 
qualities  are  well-known,  and  not 
very  often  has  it  been  applied 
to  a  job  for  which  by  nature  it 
was  essentially  unsuited. 

But  stability  of  importance  does 
not  mean  stability  as  a  financial 
investment.  Stability  of  copper 
as  a  sound  investment  today  de- 
pends on  many  factors  other  than 
the  part  it  has  played  in  making 
the  20th  Century  what  it  is.  Un- 
like most  other  commercial  met- 
als, copper  is  a  permanent  metal 
that  can  be  used  over  and  over 
again.  So  its  value  as  a  money- 
making  investment  depends  upon 
expanded  industry  and  continued 
demand  for  new  copper,  whereas 
its  value  as  a  metal  depends  on 
the  qualities  of  the  copper  in  re- 

Jl  NE.  1945 


lation  to  the  purpose  for  which 
metal  is  needed.  Thus,  financial- 
ly speaking,  copper  is  speculative; 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  man 
who  needs  metal  which  will  with- 
stand, for  instance,  the  ravages 
of  time  and  sea-water,  copper  is 
sound. 

Resistance  to  corrosion,  high 
thermal  and  electrical  conduc- 
tivity—  these  are  among  copper's 
natural  qualities.  Moreover,  it 
alloys  easily,  assuming  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  metal  with  which 
it  is  united,  and' retaining  in  good 
measure  its  own  good  character- 
istics, providing  the  alloys  with 
a  vast  range  of  mechanical  pro- 
perties. 

These  characteristics,  plus  the 
fact  that  copper  is  easily  fab-* 
ricated  and  is  available  in  quan- 
tity sufficient  to  lift  it  out  of  the 
precious  metal  category,  are  the 
factors  which  contribute  largely 
to  copper's  position  among  met- 
als in  the  story  of  mankind. 

Copper  yesterday.  When  man 
first  discovered  this  metal  is  not 
definitely  known,  nor  how.  But 
it  is  believed  to  have  been  about 
ten  thousand  years  ago,  and 
ample  proof  has  been  provided 
by  archaeologists  that  copper's 
worth  was  recognized  in  very 
early  times. 

There  is  a  period  in  history 
known  as  the  'Bronze  Age'  which 
embraces    discovery      of     copper 


41 


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and  the  beginning  of  its  devel- 
opment as  an  important  factor  in 
the  development  of  the  human 
race.  Why  this  period  is  not  re- 
ferred to  by  historians  as  the 
'Copper  Age'  might  be  because 
of  the  fact  that  the  oxide  ores 
from  which  our  early  ancestors 
produced  their  metal  contained 
small  amounts  of  tin  and  some- 
times zinc  which  when  combin- 
ed with  copper  make  bronze 
and  brass  respectively.  And  the 
tools,  weapons  and  utensils  un- 
covered by  archaeologists  indi- 
cate that  the  accidental  alloys 
were  used  in  more  cases  than 
pure  copper.  Bronze  was  not 
manufactured  deliberately  until 
about  3,000  years  after  copper's 
discovery. 

By  the  time  the  Egyptians  en- 
tered the  scene,  methods  of  mak- 
ing a  wide  variety  of  items  from 
the  metal  had  been  developed. 
They  hammered  out  the  native 
or  virgin  copper  into  sheets, 
which  could  be  more  easily  cut 
and  fashioned  as  required.  Dur- 
ing the  Fifth  Dynasty,  the  rain- 
water draining  problem  was 
first  solved  by  the  use  of  copper 
pipe.  Copper  products,  then  as 
today,  found  many  uses  in  the 
home,  field  and  shop,  and  paint- 
ings have  been  discovered  which 
show  the  methods  used  by  the 
Egyptians  for  casting  even  such 
large  items  as  temple  doors. 


About  3,000  B.C..  the  island  of 
Cyprus  became  the  civilized 
world's  copper  centre,  and  for  at 
least  thirty  centuries  it  was  the 
principal  source  of  this  metal. 
The  Sumerians,  the  Baby- 
lonians, the  Assyrians  and  the 
Chaldeans  fought  many  bitter 
wars  over  possession  of  the  mines. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  our  name 
for  the  red  metal  had  its  begin- 
ning on  this  island.  The  people 
who  lived  there,  in  honor  of  their 
homeland,  named  it  'Cyperian 
Metal,'  but  the  Romans  changed 
this  to  'aes  cyprium'  which  grad- 
ually became  shortened  to  'cup- 
rum' from  which  comes  our  word 
'copper'  and  the  chemical  symbol 
'Cu',  by  which  it  is  recognized. 

The  Romans,  using  the  metal 
from  one  of  the  greatest  copper 
mines  ever  known — the  Rio  Tin- 
to  mines  on  the  Spanish  Penin- 
sula— brought  copper's  applica- 
tions to  a  high  degree  of  develop- 
ment. 

Before  the  Romans  had  wrest- 
ed the  Rio  Tinto  mines  from  their 
Carthaginian  enemies,  the  natives 
of  North  and  South  America  had 
discovered  and  begun  to  make 
use  of  copper.  By  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance,  which  witnessed  the 
copper  and  brass  industry  flour- 
ishing after  centuries  of  obscurity 
during  the  dark  ages  which  fol- 
lowed the  fall  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, the  North  American  Indians 


42 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


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had  discovered,  worked  for  years, 
and  finally  abandoned  the  most 
important  deposit  of  pure  copper 
ever  found. 

Indians  in  this  hemisphere  used 
only  pure  copper,  because  they 
were  always  able  to  find  it  in 
sufficient  quantity  to  meet  their 
needs.  It  is  believed  that  during 
the  last  Ice  Age  on  this  continent, 
great  quantities  of  pure  copper 
were  carried  by  the  glaciers  from 
the  rich  lodes  around  the  Great 
Lakes  region,  and  distributed 
over  a  wide  area.  It  was  by  trac- 
ing the  nuggets  back  to  their 
source  that  the  Indians  are  be- 
lieved to  have  encountered  the 
large  deposits. 

Methods  of  producing  and  us- 
ing copper  developed  slowly.  It 
was  about  6,000  B.  C.  that  a 
means  of  obtaining  the  metal 
from  ore  was  discovered,  and 
then  only  from  oxide  ores  was 
this  possible.  Not  until  5,000 
years  later  was  copper  first  pro- 
duced from  sulphide  ores.  About 
this  same  time,  the  deliberate 
production  of  brass  from  copper 
and  cadmia — zinc  bearing  miner- 
al— had  its  beginning,  and  in  1550 
A.D.  the  step  of  roasting  ores  be- 
fore smelting  was  added  to  the 
production  process. 

Copper  Today.  The  age  in  which 
we  live — called  the  greatest  age  in 
world  history — owes  a  great  mea- 
sure of  its  existing  state  of  devel- 

JUNE,  1945 


opment  to  copper  and  its  alloys. 

This  is  the  age  of  electricity, 
and  from  the  earliest  days  of 
man's  successful  use  of  electric- 
ity, one  of  the  largest  single  fac- 
tors involved  has  been  copper. 

In  1882,  Thomas  A.  Edison 
threw  a  switch  in  New  York  City, 
and  electrically  illuminated 
streets  greeted  the  world  for  the 
first  time.  The  switch  Edison  us- 
ed was  of  copper.  And  his  source 
of  energy  for  that  display,  the 
first  power  generating  station, 
contained  more  than  64  tons  of 
the  red  metal. 

Recently  we  have  witnessed  the 
greatest  days  of  industrial  pro- 
duction the  world  has  ever 
known.  Electricity  was  the  life- 
blood  of  that  production,  and 
copper  was  the  veins  and  arteries. 

The  network  of  communication 
lines  that  covers  the  face  of  the 
globe,  including  both  telephone 
and  telegraph,  is  of  copper,  which 
made  it  possible  before  the  war 
for  a  person  with  a  telephone  to 
get  a  connection  with  any  one 
of  30,000,000  other  telephones 
scattered  throughout  the  world. 
The  copper  telegraph  lines  in  the 
United  States  alone,  for  example, 
would  provide  a  16  line  hook-up 
with  the  moon.  A  man  in  Van- 
couver, talking  via  long  distance 
telephone  to  someone  in  Halifax 
may  not  know  it,  but  he  utilizes 
about  800  tons  of  copper  wire. 


43 


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However,  although  the  part 
copper  played  in  the  development 
and  use  of  electric  power  may  be 
considered  the  greatest  role  cop- 
per has  played  to  date  in  the  ad- 
vance of  civilization,  electricity  is 
not  copper's  largest  peacetime 
consumer.  That  distinction  falls 
to  the  automotive  industry. 

At  one  period,  shortly  before 
the  war,  one  quarter  of  all  the 
copper  fabricated  on  this  contin- 
ent found  its  way  into  the  auto- 
motive industry  through  various 
channels.  Most  of  this  was  used 
in  the  manufacture  of  automobile 
cooling  systems.  Considerable 
went  for  body  trim  and  hardware, 
although  zinc  die-casting,  plastics 
and  chrome-plated  steel  began  to 
give  it  a  run  for  supremacy  dur- 
ing the  late  prewar  years.  Other 
items  requiring  copper  were 
bearings,  brake  linings  and  car- 
buretors. Cylinder  head  and  ex- 
haust manifold  gaskets  took  quite 
an  amount  for  years,  but  steel  be- 
gan to  play  a  more  important  part 
in  gasket  manufacturing  immedi- 
ately before  the  war. 

Another  large  user  of  copper 
and  its  alloys  is  the  building  con- 
struction industry.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  in  the  3  years  preceding 
the  war,  it  was  estimated  that  10,- 
000.000  pounds  of  copper  and 
brass  products  were  included  in 
the  items  covered  by  each  billion 
dollars   spent    for    building   con- 


struction of  all  kinds. 

In  machinery  and  equipment 
for  uses  other  than  electrical  pro- 
duction and  distribution,  the  red 
metal  has  also  found  wide  accept- 
ance. In  almost  every  instance 
where  liquid  is  transported  from 
one  place  to  another  in  industrial 
plants,  copper  and  its  alloys  can 
be  found.  In  commercial  and  in- 
dustrial air  conditioning  and  re- 
frigeration, in  control,  measuring, 
recording  and  indicating  instru- 
ments, in  heating  systems,  and  in 
a  great  variety  of  other  equip- 
ment, its  acceptability  has  been 
widely  demonstrated. 

Incidentally,  the  modern  steam 
locomotive  contains  about  4  tons 
of  copper  and  its  alloys;  an  elec- 
tric locomotive  up  to  about  37 
tons.  As  for  marine  vessels,  into 
the  making  of  the  Queen  Mary 
alone  went  about  1,500  tons. 

In  the  same  way  that  copper 
held  a  position  of  paramount  im- 
portance in  peacetime  living,  it 
carries  a  heavy  load  of  responsi- 
bilities in  wartime.  Every  single 
pound  of  copper  produced  on  this 
continent  today  does  an  important 
fighting  job.  Copper  and  brass 
are  essential  in  the  construction 
of  all  types  of  battle  and  mer- 
chant ships,  tanks,  warplanes, 
wheel  and  track  vehicles,  guns, 
ammunition,  and  many  other 
items  of  modern  warfare. 

An  example  of  what  copper  can 


44 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


NkH 

■  I . 


i 


mean  to  a  fighting  man  is  demon- 
strated in  the  operation  of  a  37 
mm.  anti-aircraft  gun.  In  every 
20  minutes  of  action,  just  one  of 
these  guns  utilizes  a  ton  of  brass. 

However,  a  good  deal  of  cop- 
per's wartime  job  consists  of  an 
expanded  and  improved  version 
of  its  peacetime  role.  Industrial 
power  and  equipment,  communi- 
cation and  transportation  were 
important  factors  during  days  of 
peace;  in  wartime  their  place  in 
the  scheme  of  things  is  relatively 
the  same,  expanded  according  to 
necessity.  In  this  expansion,  cop- 
per and  copper  base  alloys  have 
figured  impressively.  Without 
them  a  lot  of  it  would  not  have 
been  possible. 

Copper  Tomorrow.  People  in 
the  copper  industry  anticipate 
very  little  difficulty  in  selling  sub- 
stantially more  copper  during  the 
first  full  year  after  total  recon- 
version than  they  sold  in  1939. 
Their  opinions  are  based  on  con- 
sumers' estimates,  public  fore- 
casts, official  government  sources, 
and  from  information  secured 
from  other  recognized  statistical 
sources. 

However,  there  are  many  uses 
to  which  copper  and  its  alloys 
were  put  before  the  war,  which 
have  since  been  handled  with 
some  degree  of  adequacy  by  sub- 
stitutes, due  to  shortage  of  copper 
for   civilian    needs.      Whether    in 

JUNE.  1945 


some  cases  the  substitutes  will 
continue  to  reign,  whether  they 
have  done  and  will  continue  to 
do  a  job  that  is  as  good  as  copper 
could  do  in  relation  to  the  money 
spent,  is  something  which  only 
the  user  of  the  item  concerned 
will  be  able  to  decide  after  he 
has  tried  the  various  types  of 
competing  materials  in  any  field. 
The  consensus  of  opinion  is  that 
in  spite  of  warborn  competition, 
copper  will  not  come  a  cropper — 
that  what  it  might  lose  in  one 
avenue  of  application,  it  will  pick 
up  in  the  expansion  of  another. 

In  view  of  the  unprecedented 
demand  for  vehicles  of  every  type 
anticipated  for  the  postwar  period 
— it  is  felt  that  copper  will  be 
able  to  hold  its  own  as  far  as 
the  automotive  industry  is  con- 
cerned. And  this,  remember,  is 
copper's  largest  consumer.  In 
answer  to  the  chrome  plated 
steel,  plastics  and  zinc  die-casting 
which  succeeded  in  cornering  a 
fair  share  of  the  body  trim  and 
hardware  market  in  the  years 
before  the  war,  copper  men  have 
offered  chrome  plated  brass.  As 
far  as  cooling  systems  are  con- 
cerned, during  the  war,  substi- 
tute materials  have  been  tried, 
but  according  to  reports,  nothing 
has  proven  as  satisfactory  from 
the  standpoint  of  cost,  bulk  and 
ease  of  assembly  as  copper  and 
brass,  which,  it  is  expected,  will 


45 


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be  specified  to  a  large  extent  for 
the  postwar  vehicle.  Automatic 
transmissions  in  automobiles  are 
expected  to  open  up  a  new  and 
valuable  field  for  the  use  of  cop- 
per and  brass  products,  as  this 
type  of  transmission  uses  copper- 
rich  alloys,  and  in  some  instances 
is  expected  to  add  several  pounds 
to  the  amount  of  copper  used  in 
the  manufacture  of  each  unit. 

During  the  war  it  has  been  im- 
possible to  satisfy  the  demand  for 
civilian  communication  equip- 
ment. Consequently,  in  the  post- 
war period,  considerable  metal 
will  go  to  furnishing  service  to 
those  now  without,  supplement- 
ing existing  service  and  putting 
into  effect  new  techniques  in 
communication  which  have  been 
developed  in  wartime. 

Electronic  equipment,  which 
has  seen  spectacular  develop- 
ment during  war  years,  is  being 
applied  ever-increasingly  to  var- 
ied problems,  and  continued  ex- 
pansion of  its  applications  will 
provide  another  major  outlet. 

A  substantial  market  will  be 
in  the  manufacturing  of  house- 
hold refrigerators,  vacuum  clean- 
ers and  washing  machines,  if  the 
electrical  industry's  estimates  of  a 
production  rate  far  exceeding 
that  of  any  prewar  years  are  true. 

One  of  the  largest  potential 
users  of  postwar  copper  and  cop- 
per base  alloys,  will  be  of  course, 


the  building  construction  indus- 
try, not  only  for  the  construction 
of  new  buildings,  but  mainten- 
ance, repair  and  modernization 
of  existing  buildings.  Plumbing 
and  heating  equipment  is  respon- 
sible for  about  50%  of  the  metal 
used  in  this  industry.  Substitutes 
have  been  tried  in  this  field,  but 
due  to  high  service  costs  of  these 
substitutes,  copper  with  its  long 
period  of  usefulness  is  expected 
to  return.  In  addition,  copper 
water  tubing  and  soldered  fittings 
for  plumbing  and  heating  supply 
lines  promise  to  provide  competi- 
tion for  the  same  items  manu- 
factured  from  ferrous   materials. 

An  increase  in  the  postwar  use 
of  solid  brass  and  bronze  in  build- 
ers' hardware  is  anticipated  and 
in  monumental  buildings,  bronze 
remains  popular  for  windows. 
However,  plastic  window  screen- 
ing is  liable  to  give  the  copper 
article  something  of  a  battle. 

Reconversion  and  moderniza- 
tion of  existing  industrial  facili- 
ties to  peacetime  production  are 
expected  to  figure  importantly  in 
copper's  future.  An  increase  is 
anticipated  in  the  use  of  copper 
and  brass  in  machinery  manu- 
factured for  particular  industrial 
purposes.  Air  conditioning  and 
refrigeration,  comparatively  new 
industries,  will  probably  provide 
two  major  outlets,  although  this 
may  depend  on  whether  the  price 


46 


TECHNOCRACY    DIGEST 


of  aluminum  strip  and  tube  drops 
to  levels  which  might  make  cop- 
per's use  uneconomical. 

The  demand  for  welding  rods 
and  metallizing  wires  is  expected 
to  continue  at  a  level  close  to  that 
of  prewar  years.  Developments 
such  as  repairing  machinery  by 
means  of  bronze  welding,  build- 
ing up  of  worn  surfaces  by  metal 
spraying,  fabrication  and  assem- 
bly of  metal  products  by  fusion 
welding,  indicates  the  volume  of 
welding  rod  and  metallizing  wire 
which  will  be  required. 

Manufacturers  of  machinery 
and  equipment  for  office  use, 
laundry,  construction,  mining, 
excavating  and  metal  working, 
and  for  public  service  and  fire 
fighting  purposes  have  in  many 
quarters  indicated  that  they  ex- 
pect to  return  to  the  use  of  pre- 
war materials,  including  copper, 
brass  and  bronze.  In  the  special 
industrial  fields  such  as  agricul- 
tural, chemical,  petroleum,  pulp 
and  paper  and  textile  industries, 
the  demand  for  copper  for  main- 
tenance is  expected  to  exceed  any 
peacetime  levels  previously  es- 
tablished. 

So  copper  sales  during  the  first 
full  year  after  total  reconversion 
are  expected  to  be  considerably 
higher  than  they  were  in  1939. 
Transportation  will  take  almost 
double  the  poundage.  Household 
appliances  will  probably  handle  a 


60' (  increase,  the  instrument 
manufacturing  industries  about  a 
50  %  increase,  metal  working 
about  a  40%  increase,  machinery 
and  equipment  about  a  30%  in- 
crease, hardware  about  a  30%  in- 
crease. Building  and  construc- 
tion is  expected  to  require  at 
least  a  50%  increase,  electrical, 
including  full  line  hardware 
more  than  a  100%  increase,  and 
the  automotive  industry  about  a 
90%  increase. 

Those  figures  apparently  bode 
well  for  the  copper  industry.  But 
they  are  deceptive,  because  they 
only  demonstrate  the  potential 
sales.  They  have  no  bearing  on 
production,  which  must  also  be 
considered,  and  future  produc- 
tion of  copper  is  unpredictable. 
Copper,  remember,  is  a  perman- 
ent metal.  Scrap  copper  is  good 
copper,  and  no  doubt  there  will 
be  quite  a  bit  of  it  around  when 
peace  comes.  Just  how  much,  no 
one  can  foresee,  and  without 
knowing  how  much  of  it  there 
will  be,  it  is  impossible  to  predict 
its  effect. 

So  copper,  essentially,  remains 
the  same:  as  an  industry  which 
depends  on  constant  demand  for 
new  copper  for  success,  its  future 
is  as  it  always  has  been — one 
large,  permanent  question  mark; 
but  as  a  metal  whose  -qualities 
can  serve  civilization,  its  future 
is  assured.        — Robert  P.  Young 


■raiw 


JUNE,  1945 


47 


A  Question  Answered 


OW  are  the  Technocrats  go- 
ing to  take  over  or  get  into 


H 

power? 

Technocracy  Inc.  has  no  as- 
sumption of  power  theory.  It  is 
not  a  matter  of  the  Technocrats 
'taking  over'  or  'getting  power.' 
It  is  a  matter  of  the  citizens  of 
North  America  making  a  transi- 
tion from  a  set  of  obsolete  and 
outworn  economic  and  political 
institutions  to  a  new  social 
mechanism,  the  control  technique 
of  which  will  be  in  conformity 
with  the  new  physical  environ- 
ment on  this  Continent. 

The  job  ahead,  then,  is  not  the 
planning  of  a  coup  d'etat  of 
technical  men  in  key  places,  or 
any  sort  of  insurrection  or  revo- 
lution. Any  action  that  leads  to 
the  disruption  of  industries,  such 
as  production  and  transportation, 
water  and  power,  will  be  disas- 
trous for  a  majority  of  the  popu- 
lation of  North  America,  particu- 
larly in  the  larger  cities.  Instead, 
the  job  ahead  is  one  of  educating 
intelligent  and  functional  persons 
to  an  understanding  of  the  im- 
peratives being  compelled  by 
technology,  and  organizing  them 
into  a  trained  Technological 
Army  that  will  keep  our  equip- 
ment    operating     and     lead     the 


people  of  this  Continent  into  the 
social  mechanism  that  has  been 
projected  by  science  as  the  next 
most  probable  for  this  Area. 
Thus,  the  Technocrats  are  not 
'waiting  with  folded  arms  for  the 
collapse  of  the  Price  System.' 

Technocracy  Inc.  stresses  the 
national  referendum  as  an  order- 
ly means  of  bringing  about  the 
Technate.  If  and  when  66-2/3% 
of  the  citizens  of  Canada  and  the 
United  States  express  their  de- 
sire for  the  abolition  of  the  Price 
System  and  the  establishment  of 
the  Technate,  voting  for  the  first 
time  in  history  will  have  real 
social  significance — human  beings 
will  be  doing  something  for 
themselves  with  their  ballot.  This, 
of  course,  will  not  be  the  same  as 
voting  a  political  party  into  office, 
and  it  will  be  the  last  political 
action  on  this  Continent. 

It  cannot  be  too  strongly  em- 
phasized, however,  that  the  in- 
stallation of  the  Technate  is  a 
physical  operation.  Without  a 
disciplined,  widespread  organiza- 
tion of  capable  personnel  to  do 
the  job — even  though  100%  of 
the  people  voted  in  favor  of  the 
Technate — those  refer  endums 

would  merely  be  expressions  of 
national  futility. 


48 


TECHNOCRACY  DIGEST 


■  I  ■ 


;-^K. 


■ 


^m 


i 


Motes  on  Organization 


Science,  when  she  has  accomplished  all  her  triumphs  in  her  order, 
will  still  have  to  go  back,  when  the  time  comes,  to  assist  in  building 
up  a  new  creed  by  which  man  can  live  .... 

— John  Morley,  British  Statesman  and  Author  —  1838-1923 


■ 


AMONG  those  who  have  criti- 
cized Technocracy  Inc.  are 
some  who  cry  aloud  that  the 
Organization  aims  to  regiment 
the  citizens  of  North  America  in- 
to a  vast  group  of  automatons — 
servile,  unthinking  people  who 
take  their  orders  and  obey  them 
without  question.  This  charge 
appears  to  be  the  silliest  and  least 
justified  of  any  that  has  been 
made.  That  a  closely  knit,  discip- 
lined organization  is  necessary  is 
granted;  no  army  of  national  de- 
fense ever  won  a  battle  without 
it,  and  in  no  other  way  can  our 
new  Technological  Army  win  its 
battle  against  starvation,  disease, 
and  insecurity.  This  will  not  be, 
however,  the  regimentation  that 
some  fear,  but  will  represent  the 
united  efforts  of  many  people 
who  through  their  own  volition 
and  after  long  study  will  have 
mutually  agreed  that  a  united 
stand  under  scientific  leadership 
is  all  that  can  save  them  from 
bloody  revolution  and  chaos. 

The  building  of  a  new  social  mech- 
anism on  the  North  American  Continent 
demands    an    entirely    new    technique    of 

JUNE,  1945 


organization.  Technocracy  is  working 
toward  the  definite  objective  of  a  new 
social  mechanism  of  abundance  and 
security  for  all — an  objective  that  is 
predetermined  by  the  very  structure  of 
our  Continental  physical  environment. 
A  thorough  study  of  the  current  pro- 
gression of  North  America  indicates  that 
nothing  short  of  this  objective  will  satis- 
fy the  needs  of  our  people  or  the  oper- 
ating specifications  of  our  technology. 
This  is  not  a  matter  for  compromise,  as 
some  suggest,  in  an  effort  to  modify, 
reform,  or  confine  the  present  outmoded 
method  of  social  control.  It  is  a  gigantic 
problem — as  large  as  all  North  America 
and  the  full  impact  of  modern  tech- 
nology— and  it  cannot  be  solved  by  a 
compromise  of  agreement  among  many 
diverse  opinions.  This  is  a  problem 
which  can  only  be  solved  by  the  design 
and  installation  of  a  new  social  mech- 
anism. This  demands  a  new  form  of  or- 
ganization. 

In  most  instances,  individuals  join  in 
voluntary  association  to  act  upon  those 
opinions,  ideas,  or  beliefs  which  they 
hold  in  common.  These  opinions,  ideas, 
or  beliefs  may  or  may  not  be  in  accord 
with  facts,  although  group  action  may 
and  does  take  place  in  entire  disregard 
of  facts — often  with  disastrous  results. 
Once  ideas  have  crystallized  into  or- 
ganized action,  little  question'  is  raised 
or  permitted  as  to  their  feasibility  or 
conformance   to    facts. 


49 


■  I 


I 


H 


■ 


p . 


I  *_  *>  I 
■  >' 


■ 

fc*lf 

BB 

9>H 

- 

\ ■'.'■'  : 

WS 

a 

SB 

Em 

w 

m 

w 

■ 


m 

■ 


^M 


ShHmB 


In  these  cases — the  union  of  men  of 
widely  differing  conditioning,  with  a 
consequent  wide  range  of  opinions,  ideas, 
or  beliefs — it  often  follows  that  the  ob- 
jective of  the  group  is  either  initially 
or  ultimately  the  result  of  compromise, 
or  is,  of  necessity,  extremely  limited  or 
general  in  scope.  This  explains  the 
popularity  and  effectiveness  of  the  emo- 
tional approach  and  the  political  gener- 
ality: neither  clearly  states  nor  ade- 
quately defines  the  project ;  both  are 
readily  adapted  by  the  individual  to  his 
existing  stock  of  ideas. 

Technocracy  partakes  of  only  one  of 
these  elements  in  that  it  is  dependent 
on  the  voluntary  association  of  indivi- 
duals acting  together  on  certain  ideas 
upon  which  they  are  in  agreement.  It 
differs,  however,  from  all  other  social 
movements,  past  and  present,  in  that 
these  common  ideas  are  not  the  result 
of  philosophic  agreement.  Compromise, 
in  so  far  as  it  may  enter  into  the  build- 
ing of  this  Organization,  must  be  entire- 
ly upon  the  part  of  the  individual  in 
allying   himself    with    the    movement. 

The  building  of  such  an  organization 
demands  an  approach  that  is  a  direct 
inversion  of  the  methods  employed  by 
all  other  social  movements.  The  emo- 
tional popularization  of  Technocracy's 
program  would  mean  but  a  temporary 
gain ;  persons  drawn  into  the  movement 
by  such  means  are  good  only  for  im- 
mediate action — rarely  can  they  be  held 
for  a  long-term  program.  This  is  amply 
illustrated  by  the  rapid  growth  and  de- 
cay of  the  many  contemporary  social 
movements  that  have  employed  such 
methods.  Technocracy's  task  is  one  of 
providing  facts;  facts  upon  which  all 
may  build  common  ideas.  The  continu- 
ation and  expansion  of  the  research 
program  and  the  widespread  presentation 


of  the  facts  gained  therefrom  is  part  of 
that   task. 

The  growth  of  Technocracy  has  follow- 
ed naturally  upon  the  formation  of 
common  ideas  based  on  facts.  Growth 
by  such  methods  has  been  slow,  but  it 
has  been  a  selective  process  that  will 
assure  a  membership  of  the  type  re- 
quired. Men  who  enter  an  organization 
through  emotional  excitation  are  as 
readily  lost  to  another;  men  who  enter 
an  organization  with  an  understanding 
and  acceptance  of  the  factual  basis  of 
its  program  cannot  be  led  astray.  Such 
only  are  deserving  of  the  name — 
Technocrat. 

Technocracy  is  not  a  European 
ideology;  it  is  a  plan  and  a  method 
which  is  the  property  of  the 
people  of  the  North  American 
Continent;  it  was  designed  and 
constructed  by  them  for  their 
own  use,  and  will  finally  have  its 
principles  and  methods  of  oper- 
ation installed  by  the  free  action 
of  the  vast  majority  of  them. 

The  question  of  'automatons' 
can  be  dismissed  once  and  for 
all.  The  genius  of  the  innumer- 
able persons  who  built  up  the 
countries  of  this  Continent  will 
be  needed,  and  in  added  measure, 
to  carry  them  on  to  infinitely 
greater  achievements.  This  will 
be  no  job  for  the  minds  of  any 
small  minority,  but  will  be  a 
challenge  to  the  greatest  effort 
and  thought  of  every  man  and 
woman,  whatever  his  or  her  posi- 
tion in  the  new  social  mechanism. 


50 


TECHNOCRACY   DIGEST 


TECHNOCRACY 


WHAT? 

Technocracy  is  science  in  the  social 
field.  Encyclopedia  Americana  says: 
'Whatever  the  future  of  Technocracy, 
one  must  fairly  say  that  it  is  the 
only  program  of  social  and  economic 
reconstruction  which  is  in  complete 
intellectual  and  technical  accord  with 
the  age  in  which  we  live.' 

WHEN? 

Technocracy  originated  in  the  winter 
of  1918-1919  when  Howard  Scott 
formed  a  group  of  scientists,  engin- 
eers, and  economists  that  became 
known  in  1920  as  the  Technical  Alli- 
ance— a  research  organization.  Some 
of  the  better  known  names  in  the 
Technical  Alliance  are  of  interest, 
such  as:  Frederick  L.  Ackerman,  ar- 
chitect; L.  K.  Comstock,  electrical 
engineer;  Stuart  Chase,  C.P.A.  (now 
well-known  writer) ;  Bassett  Jones, 
electrical  engineer;  Leland  Olds, 
statistician  (now  Federal  Power 
Commissioner);  Benton  Mackaye 
(now  in  the  Forestry  Department); 
Charles  P.  Steinmetz  and  Thorstein 
Veblen  (both  now  dead).  Howard 
Scott  was  Chief  Engineer.  In  1930 
the  group  was  first  known  as  Tech- 
nocracy. In  1933  it  was  incorporated 
under  the  laws  of  the  state  of  New 
York  as  a  non-profit,  non-political, 
non-sectarian  membership  organiza- 
tion. In  1934  Howard  Scott,  Direct- 
or-in-Chief,  made  his  first  Continent- 
al lecture  tour  which  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  present  Continental 
membership  organization.  Since  1934 
Technocracy  has  grown  steadily  with- 
out any  spectacular  spurts,  revivals, 
collapses,  or  rebirths.  This  is  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  press  has 
generally  'held  the  lid'  on  Technoc- 
racy, until  early  in  1942  when  it 
made  the  tremendous  'discovery'  that 
Technocracy  had  been  reborn  sudden- 
ly, full-fledged  with  all  its  members, 
headquarters,   etc.,  in   full   swing! 


WHY? 

Technocracy's  survey  of  the  econo- 
mic situation  in  North  America  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  de- 
velopment a  process  of  progressive 
social  instability,  that  this  process 
will  continue  until  the  instability 
reaches  the  limits  of  social  tolerance 
and  that  there  then  will  have  to  be 
installed  on  this  Continent  a  social 
mechanism  competent  to  meet  the 
needs  of  its  people.  Technocracy 
finds  further  that  the  day  when 
social  operations  on  this  Continent 
can  be  based  on  a  method  of  valua- 
tion has  passed,  and  that  it  is  now 
necessary  that  there  be  applied  in 
the  social  field  the  quantitative 
methods  of  physical  science.  Tech- 
nocracy, therefore,  proposes  that  the 
North  American  Continent  be  operat- 
ed as  a  self-contained  functional  unit 
under  technological  control.  This 
control  would  operate  the  area  under 
a  balanced-load  system  of  production 
and  distribution,  whereunder  there 
would  be  distributed  purchasing 
power  commensurate  with  the  re- 
sources and  the  continuous  full-load 
operation  of  the  physical  equipment, 
with  the  guarantee  of  a  high  stand- 
ard of  living,  equality  of  income,  and 
economic  security,  at  a  minimum  of 
working  hours,  to  every  adult  in- 
habitant. 

HOW? 

At  this  stage  the  objectives  of  Tech- 
nocracy are  first,  the  education  of 
the  people  of  North  America  to  a 
realization  of  the  conditions  behind 
the  social  crisis,  and  second,  the  or- 
ganization of  all  those  willing  to  in- 
vestigate and  interest  themselves  in- 
to an  informed,  disciplined,  and  func- 
tionally capable  body  whose  know- 
ledge and  ability  can  be  called  upon 
to  prevent  chaos  in  North  America 
at  that  time,  now  imminent,  when 
the  Price  System  can  no"  longer  be 
made  to  operate. 


3 


A  Fascist  Conspiracy  Against  Russia 


THE  United  Nations'  conference  in  San  Francisco  has  been  called  for  the  avowed 
purpose  of  having  the  representatives,  delegates,  and  advisors  of  the  United 
Nations  assembled  to  confer,  discuss,  and  decide  upon  the  design  and  construc- 
tion of  a  permanent  international  organization  for  securing  permanent  peace.  The 
United  Nations'  conference  at  San  Francisco  is  not  a  peace  conference.  It  will  not  lay 
down  and  determine  the  conditions  of  peace  of  World  War  II.  It  will  not  fix  boun- 
daries and  allocate  territories,  neither  will  it  determine  any  war  reparations.  It  will 
however  erect  on  paper  an  international  assembly  of  sovereign  nations  to  be  governed 
in  theory  by  the  common  consensus  of  the  majority;  in  actuality,  to  be  controlled 
only  by  the  coordinated  agreement  of  the  Big  Three.  To  put  it  mildly,  if  the  Big 
Three  cannot  agree  between  themselves,  all  of  the  lesser  powers  combined  could 
neither  prevent  disagreement  nor  compel   agreement. 

The  apparent  purpose  of  the  United  Nations'  conference  may  be  described  as  a 
laudable  ideal  internationalism  but,  in  spite  of  this  idealism,  there  lurks  the  deep  sus- 
picion supported  by  incontestable  evidence  that  the  underlying  purpose  of  the  San 
Francisco  Conference  is  a  smooth  and  well  laid  conspiracy  of  the  Fascist  majority  of 
the  United  Nations  to  mobilize  world  opinion  against  Soviet  Russia  so  as  to  counter- 
act the  defeat  of  Fascist  Europe  and  Asia.  This  conspiracy  is  predicated  upon  the 
fundamental  assumption  that  its  success  is  dependent  upon  perpetrating  a  state  of  war 
between  this  country  and  Soviet  Russia.  The  machinations  of  the  Fascist  intriguers 
within  the  ranks  of  two  of  the  Big  Three  has  already  created  a  dangerous  crisis  in  the 
relationship  between  the  United  States  and  Soviet  Russia.  If  these  machinations  are 
permitted  to  continue,  an  open  breach  is  inevitable  in  the  near  future. 


— CHQ,  Technocracy  Inc. 


(Section  Stamp)